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"A    JOY    FOR    EVER" 


"A     JOY     FOR      EVER" 

(AND  ITS  PRICE  IN  THE  MARKET) 

BEING 

THE   SUBSTANCE   (WITH   ADDITIONS) 

OF 

TWO      LECTURES 

ON  THE  POLITICAL  ECONOMY  OF  ART 

Delivered  at  Manchester,   July  loth  and  13th,    1857 
BY 

JOHN    RUSKIN,    LL.D. 

HONORARY    STUDENT    OF     CHRIST     CHURCH,     AND     HONORARY     FELLOW 
OF     CORPUS    CHR1STI     COLLEGE,     OXFORD 

"A  thing  of  beauty  is  a  joy  for  ever." — Keats. 

WITH  AN  INTRODUCTION   BY  CHARLES  ELIOT  NORTON 

BRANTWOOD    EDITION 

NEW  YORK : 
Mavnard,    Merrill,   &    Co.,    Publishers, 

43,  45  &  47  East  Tenth  St. 
1894. 


SPECIAL    ANNOUNCEMENT 

Mr.  George  Allen  begs  to  announce  that  Ruskui's  Works 
will  hereafter  be  published  in  America  by  Messrs.  Charles 
E.  Merrill  &  Co.  (Maynard,  Merrill  &  Co.,  successors), 
of  New   York,  who  will  issue  the  only  authorized  editions. 


Copyright  1891 
Charles  E.  Merrill  &  Co. 


^7 


INTRODUCTION. 


'"T^HIS  book,  first  published  in  1857,  under 
-*-  the  title  of  The  Political  Economy  of 
Art,  marks  the  parting  of  the  ways  in  Mr. 
Ruskin's  life, — his  turning  from  the  pleasant, 
open  fields  of  nature  and  of  art  into  the 
rugged  path  of  political  economy.  He  was 
induced  to  return  from  time  to  time  to  the 
old  lines  of  study,  but  henceforth  he  was 
mainly  to  pursue  another  course.  This 
change  in  the  prevailing  direction  of  his 
thoughts  and  labours  had  little  in  it  to 
surprise  the  careful  reader  of  his  earlier 
works,  for  they  all  had  given  evidence  that 
his  artistic  sympathies  and  appreciations 
were  largely  determined  by  his  moral  senti- 
ment, and  that  the  gifts  of  his  genius  were 
controlled  by  the  temperament  of  a  preacher 


39478 i 


VI  INTRODUCTION. 

and  a  prophet.  His  rare  powers  of  percep- 
tion, and  his  poetic  faculty,  reinforced  by 
the  spirit  of  youth,  had  asserted  themselves 
in  his  early  work,  but,  with  the  growth  of 
reflection  in  his  mature  years,  they  were  to 
submit  themselves  more  and  more  to  the 
mastery  of  his  temperament.  Its  natural 
authority,  as  an  inheritance  of  blood,  had 
been  greatly  confirmed  by  his  peculiar  educa- 
tion, and  by  the  character  of  the  thought 
and  social  conditions  of  England  during  his 
youth. 

The  circumstances  of  his  life,  fortunate  in 
many  external  respects,  were  far  from  favour- 
able to  the  free  and  happy  development  of 
his  natural  disposition  ;  his  moral  sense  was 
cultivated  at  the  expense  of  his  imagination, 
with  the  result  that  ethical  principle  in  him, 
instead  of  becoming  more  and  more  at  one 
with  the  imagination,  a  necessity  of  its  normal 
growth,  was  separated  more  and  more  from 
it  as  a  product  of  the  understanding.  His 
poetic    and    artistic     instincts    were     not    so 


INTRODUCTION.  Vll 

much  nourished  as  checked  by  the  exactions 
of  his  overtrained  moral  sensibilities. 

It  thus  came  to  pass  that  his  very  love  and 
study  of  the  arts  as  products  of  the  highest 
faculties  of  man,  involving  ethical  principles 
as  a  necessity,  became  from  a  primal  interest 
altogether  secondary  to  a  direct  consideration 
of  the  relation  of  the  arts  to  human  welfare. 
The  meaning  and  uses  of  painting  as  a  fine 
art  especially  suggested  grave  questions. 
Having  largely  lost  its  function  as  a  means 
of  expression  of  general  sentiment,  and,  with 
this,  its  aim  to  give  a  poetic  interpretation 
of  life  and  nature  ;  having  become  mainly  an 
art  of  luxury  and  display,  practised  by  most 
of  its  followers  for  the  sake  of  a  livelihood 
to  be  gained  by  supplying  the  demand  for 
a  fashionable  mode  of  decoration  of  private 
apartments,  the  problem  of  its  essential  worth, 
and  of  its  significance  in  a  well-ordered 
community,  naturally  forced  itself  upon  the 
attention  of  a  moralist.  The  special  occasion 
for  the  treatment  of  the  subject  was  offered 

b 


VUl  INTRODUCTION. 

by  the  Manchester  Exhibition  in  1857.  Here 
was  displayed  in  an  incomparable  collection 
the  astonishing  wealth  of  England  in  pictures 
old  and  new.  Keats's  much-abused  verse 
about  beauty  was  inscribed  in  letters  of  gold 
on  the  cornice  of  the  Exhibition  building, 
and  suggested  to  Mr.  Ruskin  the  title  of 
this  volume,  the  main  contents  of  which  con- 
sist of  two  lectures  delivered  at  Manchester 
while  the  Exhibition  was  still  open. 

The  lectures  were  written  at  Cowley, 
near  Oxford.  I  was  making  a  brief  stay  in 
Oxford  at  the  time,  and  seeing  Mr.  Ruskin 
daily.  He  read  a  great  part  of  the  lectures 
to  me,  and  the  readings  led  to  long  discus- 
sions, of  which  I  now  remember  only,  to  use 
his  own  phrase,  "  an  inconceivable  humility  " 
on  his  part  in  listening  to  my  objections  to 
his  views,  and  an  invincible  "obstinacy"  (his 
own  word  again, — see  pp.  181,  182)  in  main- 
taining his  opinions.  In  the  main  I  was 
desirous  to  hold  him  to  the  work  of  the 
imagination,  and  he  was  set  on  subordinating 


INTRODUCTION. 


it  to  what  he  esteemed  of  more  direct  and 
practical  importance. 

One  of  the  noblest  passages  of  heartfelt 
eloquence  in  this  little  book  is  the  descrip- 
tion of  Verona  on  pp.  85-8.  In  "a  letter 
written  to  me  at  Venice,  a  month  before  our 
meeting  at  Oxford,  he  had  said  :  "  Mind 
you  leave  yourself  time  enough  for  Verona. 
People  always  give  too  little  time  to  Verona  ; 
it  is  my  dearest  place  in  Italy.  If  you  are 
vindictive  and  want  to  take  vengeance  on 
me  for  despising  Rome,  write  me  a  letter  of 
abuse  of  Verona.  But  be  sure  to  do  it  before 
you  have  seen  it, — you  can't  afterwards. 
You  have  seen  it  I  believe,  but  give  it  time 
and  quiet  walks  now." 

Another  passage  in  the  same  letter  illus- 
trates the  note  on  p.  188,  in  which  Mr.  Ruskin 
speaks  of  his  three  years'  "close  and  incessant 
labour  "  on  the  architecture  of  Venice,  "  two 
long  winters  being  wholly  spent  in  the  draw- 
ing of  details  on  the  spot."  "  I  went  through 
so    much  hard,    dry,   mechanical    toil    there," 


X  INTRODUCTION. 

he  wrote,  "  that  I  quite  lost,  before  I  left  it, 
the  charm  of  the  place.  Analysis  is  an 
abominable  business.  I  am  quite  sure  that 
people  who  work  out  subjects  thoroughly 
are  disagreeable  wretches, — one  only  feels 
as  one  should  when  one  doesn't  know  much 
about  the  matter  :  if  I  could  give  you  for  a 
few  minutes — just  as  you  are  floating  up  the 
Canal  just  now — the  kind  of  feeling  that  I 
had  when  I  had  just  done  my  work,  when 
Venice  presented  itself  to  me  merely  as  so 
many  '  mouldings,'  and  I  had  few  associations 
with  any  building  but  those  of  more  or  less 
pain  and  puzzle  and  provocation, — pain  of 
frost-bitten  fingers  and  chilled  throat  as  I 
examined  or  drew  the  window-sills  in  the 
wintry  air ;  puzzlement  from  said  window- 
sills  which  didn't  agree  with  the  door-steps, 
or  back  of  house  which  wouldn't  agree  with 
front ;  and  provocation  from  every  sort  of 
soul  or  thing  in  Venice  at  once,"  (here  follows 
a  long  list  of  real  and  fictitious  or,  at  least, 
humorously  exaggerated  provocations,  ending 


INTRODUCTION.  XI 

with)  "  from  the  wind  which  used  to  blow 
my  sketches  into  the  Canal,  and  one  day 
blew  my  gondolier  after  them ;  from  the 
rain  which  came  through  the  roof  of  the 
Scuola  di  San  Rocco ;  from  the  sun  which 
blistered  Tintoret's  Bacchus  and  Ariadne 
every  afternoon  at  the  ducal  palace;  and 
from  the  ducal  palace  itself — worst  of  all — 
which  wouldn't  be  found  out  nor  tell  me 
how  it  was  built  (I  believe  this  sentence 
had  a  beginning  somewhere,  which  wants 
an  end  seme  other  where,  but  I  haven't  any 
end  for  it,  so  it  must  go  as  it  is).  ...  I  have 
got  all  the  right  feeling  back,  now,  however  ; 
and  hope  to  write  a  word  or  two  about  Venice 
yet,  when  I  have  got  the  mouldings  well  out 
of  my  head — and  the  mud.  For  the  fact  is, — 
with  reverence  be  it  spoken, — that,  whereas 
Rogers  says,  '  There  is  a  glorious  city  in  the 
Sea,'  a  truthful  person  must  say,  '  There  is 
a  glorious  city  in  the  Mud.'  It  is  startling  at 
first  to  say  so,  but  it  goes  well  enough  with 
Marble,—'  O  Queen  of  Marble  and  of  Mud.'" 


Xll  INTRODUCTION. 

The  lightness  of  these  extracts  gives  no 
false  impression  of  the  cheerfulness  of  Mr. 
Ruskin's  spirit  at  the  time  of  writing  of  these 
his  first  formal  essays  in  the  field  of  Political 
Economy.  It  is  shown  in  the  tone  of  the 
lectures  themselves.  It  is  worth  noting,  for 
the  mood  was  soon  to  change.  The  closing 
words  of  his  second  and  last  lecture  were 
full  of  hope, — the  times  predicted  by  hope 
seemed  to  him  then  not  far  from  us.  But 
the  next  years  were  for  him  years  of  sorrow 
and  illness  and  disappointment ;  the  con- 
ditions of  Europe,  the  war  in  America,  made 
the  world  black  to  him,  and  when  he  spoke 
again  on  questions  of  Political  Economy  it 
was  in  another  tone,  and  with  words  of 
darker  presage. 

C.  E.  N. 

Cambridge,  Massachusetts, 
1891. 


-    PREFACE 
TO  THE  RE-ISSUE  OF  1880. 


The  title  of  this  book, — or,  more  accurately, 
of  its  subject; — for  no  author  was  ever  less 
likely  than  I  have  lately  become,  to  hope  for 
perennial  pleasure  to  his  readers  from  what 
has  cost  himself  the  most  pains, — will  be,  per- 
haps, recognised  by  some  as  the  last  clause  of 
the  line  chosen  from  Keats  by  the  good  folks 
of  Manchester,  to  be  written  in  letters  of  gold 
on  the  cornice,  or  Holy  rood,  of  the  great 
Exhibition  which  inaugurated  the  career  of 
so  many, — since  organized,  by  both  foreign 
governments  and  our  own,  to  encourage  the 
production  of  works  of  art,  which  the  produc- 
ing nations,  so  far  from  intending  to  be  their 
"joy  for  ever,"  only  hope  to  sell  as  soon  as 


xiv  PREFACE. 

possible.  Yet  the  motto  was  chosen  with 
uncomprehended  felicity:  for  there  never  was, 
nor  can  be,  any  essential  beauty  possessed  by 
a  work  of  art,  which  is  not  based  on  the  con- 
ception of  its  honoured  permanence,  and  local 
influence,  as  a  part  of  appointed  and  precious 
furniture,  either  in  the  cathedral,  the  house,  or 
the  joyful  thoroughfare,  of  nations  which  enter 
their  gates  with  thanksgiving,  and  their  courts 
with  praise. 

"  Their  "  courts — or  "  His  "  courts  ; — in  the 
mind  of  such  races,  the  expressions  are  syn- 
onymous :  and  the  habits  of  life  which  re- 
cognise the  delightfulness,  confess  also  the 
sacredness,  of  homes  nested  round  the  seat 
of  a  worship  unshaken  by  insolent  theory : 
themselves  founded  on  an  abiding  affection 
for  the  past,  and  care  for  the  future ;  and 
approached  by  paths  open  only  to  the  activi- 
ties of  honesty,  and  traversed  only  by  the 
footsteps  of  peace. 

The  exposition  of  these  truths,  to  which  I 
have  given  the  chief  energy  of  my  life,  will  be 


PREFACE.  XV 

found  in  the  following  pages  first  undertaken 
systematically  and  in  logical  sequence ;  and 
what  I  have  since  written  on  the  political  in- 
fluence of  the  Arts  has  been  little  more  than 
the  expansion  of  these  first  lectures,  in  the 
reprint  of  which  not  a  sentence  is  omitted  or 
changed. 

The  supplementary  papers  added  contain,  in 
briefest  form,  the  aphorisms  respecting  prin- 
ciples of  art-teaching  of  which  the  attention  I 
gave  to  this  subject  during  the  continuance  of 
my  Professorship  at  Oxford  confirms  me  in  the 
earnest  and  contented  re-assertion. 

John  Ruskin. 

Brantwood, 

April  29th,   1880. 


PREFACE 
TO  THE  1857   EDITION, 


The  greater  part  of  the  following  treatise 
remains  in  the  exact  form  in  which  it  was  read 
at  Manchester ;  but  the  more  familiar  passages 
of  it,  which  were  trusted  to  extempore  delivery, 
have  been  written  with  greater  explicitness  and 
fulness  than  I  could  give  them  in  speaking ; 
and  a  considerable  number  of  notes  are  added, 
to  explain  the  points  which  could  not  be  suffi- 
ciently considered  in  the  time  I  had  at  my 
disposal  in  the  lecture  room. 

Some  apology  may  be  thought  due  to  the 
reader,  for  an  endeavour  to  engage  his  atten- 
tion on  a  subject  of  which  no  profound  study 
seems  compatible  with  the  work  in  which  I  am 
usually  employed.     But  profound  study  is  not, 


xm'h  preface. 

in  this  case,  necessary  either  to  writer  or 
readers,  while  accurate  study,  up  to  a  certain 
point,  is  necessary  for  us  all.  Political  eco- 
nomy means,  in  plain  English,  nothing  more 
than  "  citizen's  economy  "  ;  and  its  first  prin- 
ciples ought,  therefore,  to  be  understood  by 
all  who  mean  to  take  the  responsibility  of 
citizens,  as  those  of  household  economy  by  all 
who  take  the  responsibility  of  householders. 
Nor  are  its  first  principles  in  the  least  obscure  : 
they  are,  many  of  them,  disagreeable  in  their 
practical  requirements,  and  people  in  general 
pretend  that  they  cannot  understand,  because 
they  are  unwilling  to  obey  them  :  or  rather,  by 
habitual  disobedience,  destroy  their  capacity 
of  understanding  them.  But  there  is  not  one 
of  the  really  great  principles  of  the  science 
which  is  either  obscure  or  disputable, — which 
might  not  be  taught  to  a  youth  as  soon  as 
he  can  be  trusted  with  an  annual  allowance, 
or  to  a  young  lady  as  soon  as  she  is  of  age 
to  be  taken  into  counsel  by  the  housekeeper. 
I  might,  with  more  appearance  of  justice,  be 


PREFACE.  XIX 

blamed  for  thinking  it  necessary  to  enforce 
what  everybody  is  supposed  to  know.  But 
this  fault  will  hardly  be  found  with  me,  while 
the  commercial  events  recorded  daily  in  our 
journals,  and  still  more  the  explanations  at- 
tempted to  be  given  of  them,  show  that  a  large 
number  of  our  so-called  merchants  are  as 
ignorant  of  the  nature  of  money  as  they  are 
reckless,  unjust,  and  unfortunate  in  its  employ- 
ment. 

The  statements  of  economical  principles 
given  in  the  text,  though  I  know  that  most, 
if  not  all,  of  them  are  accepted  by  existing 
authorities  on  the  science,  are  not  supported 
by  references,  because  I  have  never  read  any 
author  on  political  economy,  except  Adam 
Smith,  twenty  years  ago.  Whenever  I  have 
taken  up  any  modern  book  upon  this  subject, 
I  have  usually  found  it  encumbered  with  in- 
quiries into  accidental  or  minor  commercial 
results,  for  the  pursuit  of  which  an  ordinary 
reader  could  have  no  leisure,  and  by  the 
complication  of  which,    it   seemed    to   me,   the 


XX  PREFACE. 

authors  themselves  had  been  not  unfrequently 
prevented  from  seeing  to  the  root  of  the 
business. 

Finally,  if  the  reader  should  feel  induced  to 
blame  me  for  too  sanguine  a  statement  of 
future  possibilities  in  political  practice,  let  him 
consider  how  absurd  it  would  have  appeared 
in  the  days  of  Edward  I.  if  the  present  state 
of  social  economy  had  been  then  predicted 
as  necessary,  or  even  described  as  possible. 
And  I  believe  the  advance  from  the  days  of 
Edward  I.  to  our  own,  great  as  it  is  confess- 
edly, consists,  not  so  much  in  what  we  have 
actually  accomplished,  as  in  what  we  are  now 
enabled  to  conceive. 


CONTENTS. 


LECTURE  I. 

THE   DISCOVERY  AND  APPLICATION  OF  ART   . 
A  Lecture  delivered  at  Manchester,  July  \Oth,   1857 


PAGE 

I 


LECTURE    II. 

THE    ACCUMULATION    AND  DISTRIBUTION   OF 

ART 

Continuation  of  the  previous  Lecture ;    delivered 
July  13th,  1857. 


70 


ADDENDA. 

Note  i. — "fatherly  authority"     . 
,,      2. — "right  to  public  support" 
„      3. — "trial  schools" 
,,      4. — "public  favour" 
„      5. —  "invention  of  new  wants" 


i5' 

159 

169 

180 

183 


I  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Note  6.  —  "economy  of  literature"         .  .      187^ 

„      7. — "pilots  of  the  state''      .  .  .      189 

„      8. — "silk  and  purple"  ....      193 


SUPPLEMENTARY  ADDITIONAL  PAPERS. 

EDUCATION   IN   ART 213 

ART   SCHOOL  NOTES  .....      229 

SOCIAL   POLICY  ......      240 


"A    JOY    FOR    EVER." 


LECTURE    I. 

THE    DISCOVERY   AND    APPLICATION    OF    ART. 
A  Lecture  delivered  at  Manchester,  July  10,  1857. 

I.  Among  the  various  characteristics  of  the  age 
in  which  we  live,  as  compared  with  other  ages 
of  this  not  yet  very  experienced  world,  one  of 
the  most  notable  appears  to  me  to  be  the  just 
and  wholesome  contempt  in  which  we  hold 
poverty.  I  repeat,  the  just  and  wholesome  con- 
tempt ;  though  I  see  that  some  of  my  hearers 
look  surprised  at  the  expression.  I  assure 
them,  I  use  it  in  sincerity ;  and  I  should  not 
have  ventured  to  ask  you  to  listen  to  me  this 
evening,  unless  I  had  entertained  a  profound 
respect  for  wealth — true  wealth,  that  is  to  say ; 
for,    of   course,  we    ought    to    respect    neither 

1 


2  "A   JOY    FOR    EVER. 

wealth  nor  anything  else  that  is  false  of  its 
kind  :  and  the  distinction  between  real  and 
false  wealth  is  one  of  the  points  on  which  I 
shall  have  a  few  words  presently  to  say  to  you. 
But  true  wealch  I  hold,  as  I  said,  in  great 
honour ;  and  sympathize,  for  the  most  part, 
with  that  extraordinary  feeling  of  the  present 
age  which  publicly  pays  this  honour  to  riches. 

2.  I  cannot,  however,  help  noticing  how 
extraordinary  it  is,  and  how  this  epoch  of 
ours  differs  from  all  bygone  epochs  in  having 
no  philosophical  nor  religious  worshippers 
of  the  ragged  godship  of  poverty.  In  the 
classical  ages,  not  only  were  there  people 
who  voluntarily  lived  in  tubs,  and  who  used 
gravely  to  maintain  the  superiority  of  tub-life 
to  town-life,  but  the  Greeks  and  Latins  seem 
fro  have  looked  on  these  eccentric,  and  I  do 
not  scruple  to  say,  absurd  people,  with  as  much 
respect  as  we  do  upon  large  capitalists  and 
landed  proprietors  ;  so  that  really,  in  those  days, 
no  one  could  be  described  as  purse  proud, 
but  only  as  empty-purse  proud.  And  no  less 
distinct  than  the  honour  which  those  curious 
Greek  people  pay  to  their  conceited  poor,  is  the 
disrespectful  manner  in    which  they  speak    of 


I.     DISCOVERY    AND    APPLICATION.  3 

the  rich  ;  so  that  one  cannot  listen  long  either 
to  them,  or  to  the  Roman  writers  who  imi- 
tated them,  without  finding  cneself  entangled 
in  all  sorts  of  plausible  absuidities  ;  hard  upon 
being  convinced  of  the  uselessness  of  collecting 
that  heavy  yellow  substance  which  we  call 
gold,  and  led  generally  to  doubt  all  the  most 
established  maxims  of  political  economy. 

3.  Nor  are  matters  much  better  in  the  Middle 
Ages.  For  the  Greeks  and  Romans  contented 
themselves  with  mocking  at  rich  people,  and 
constructing  merry  dialogues  between  Charon 
and  Diogenes  or  Menippus,  in  which  the  ferry- 
man and  the  cynic  rejoiced  together  as  they 
saw  kings  and  rich  men  coming  down  to  the 
shcre  of  Acheron,  in  lamenting  and  lamentable 
crowds,  casting  their  crowns  into  the  daik 
waters,  and  searching,  sometimes  in  vain,  for 
the  last  coin  out  of  all  their  treasures  that 
could  ever  be  of  use  to  them. 

4.  But  these  Pagan  views  of  the  matter  were 
indulgent,  compared  with  those  which  were 
held  in  the  Middle  Ages,  when  wealth  seems  to 
have  been  looked  upon  by  the  best  men  not  only 
as  contemptible,  but  as  criminal.  The  purse 
round  the  neck  is,   then,  one  of  the   principal 


4  A    JOY    FOR    EVER. 

signs  of  condemnation  in  the  pictured  Inferno  ; 
and  the  Spirit  of  Poverty  is  reverenced  with 
subjection  of  heart,  and  faithfulness  of  affec- 
tion, like  that  of  a  loyal  knight  for  his  lady, 
or  a  loyal  subject  for  his  queen.  And  truly, 
it  requires  some  boldness  to  quit  ourselves  of 
these  feelings,  and  to  confess  their  partiality  or 
their  error,  which,  nevertheless,  we  are  cer- 
tainly bound  to  do.  For  wealth  is  simply  one 
of  the  greatest  powers  which  can  be  entrusted 
to  human  hands  :  a  power,  not  indeed  to  be 
envied,  because  it  seldom  makes  us  happy ;  but 
still  less  to  be  abdicated  or  despised;  while, 
in  these  days,  and  in  this  country,  it  has 
become  a  power  all  the  more  notable,  in  that 
the  possessions  of  a  rich  man  are  not  repre- 
sented, as  they  used  to  be,  by  wedges  of  gold 
or  coffers  of  jewels,  but  by  masses  of  men 
variously  employed,  over  whose  bodies  and 
minds  the  wealth,  according  to  its  direction, 
exercises  harmful  or  helpful  influence,  and  be- 
comes, in  that  alternative,  Mammon  either  of 
Unrighteousness  or  of  Righteousness. 

5.  Now,  it  seemed  to  me  that  since,  in  the 
name  you  have  given  to  this  great  gathering 
of   British    pictures,    you   recognize    them    as 


I.      DISCOVERY    AND    APPLICATION.  5 

Treasures — that  is,  I  suppose,  as  part  and 
parcel  of  the  real  wealth  of  the  country — you 
might  not  be  uninterested  in  tracing  certain 
commercial  questions  connected  with  this  par- 
ticular form  of  wealth.  Most  persons  express 
themselves  as  surprised  at  its  quantity ;  not 
having  known  before  to  what  an  extent  good 
art  had  been  accumulated  in  England  :  and  it 
will,  therefore,  I  should  think,  be  held  a  worthy 
subject  of  consideration,  what  are  the  political 
interests  involved  in  such  accumulations,  what 
kind  of  labour  they  represent,  and  how  this 
labour  may  in  general  be  applied  and  econo- 
mized, so  as  to  produce  the  richest  results. 

6.  Now,  you  must  have  patience  with  me, 
if  in  approaching  the  specialty  of  this  subject, 
I  dwell  a  little  on  certain  points  of  general  poli- 
tical science  already  known  or  established  : 
for  though  thus,  as  I  believe,  established,  some 
which  I  shall  have  occasion  to  rest  arguments 
on  are  not  yet  by  any  means  universally  ac- 
cepted ;  and  therefore,  though  I  will  not  lose 
time  in  any  detailed  defence  of  them,  it  is 
necessary  that  I  should  distinctly  tell  you  in 
what  form  I  receive,  and  wish  to  argue  from 
them ;  and  this  the   more,   because  there  may 


o  "a  joy  for  ever. 

perhaps  be  a  part  of  my  audience  who  have 
not  interested  themselves  in  political  economy, 
as  it  bears  on  ordinary  fields  of  labour,  but 
may  yet  wish  to  hear  in  what  way  its  principles 
can  be  applied  to  Art.  I  shall,  therefore,  take 
leave  to  trespass  on  your  patience  with  a  few 
elementary  statements  in  the  outset,  and  with 
the  expression  of  some  general  principles,  here 
and  there,  in  the  course  of  our  particular 
inquiry. 

7.  To  begin,  then,  with  one  of  these  neces- 
sary truisms :  all  economy,  whether  of  states, 
households,  or  individuals,  may  be  defined  to 
be  the  art  of  managing  labour.  The  world  is 
so  regulated  by  the  laws  of  Providence,  that 
a  man's  labour,  well  applied,  is  always  amply 
sufficient  to  provide  him  during  his  life  with  all 
things  needful  to  him,  and  not  only  with  those, 
but  with  many  pleasant  objects  of  luxury ;  and 
yet  farther,  to  procure  him  large  intervals 
of  healthful  rest  and  serviceable  leisure.  And 
a  nation's  labour,  well  applied,  is,  in  like 
manner,  amply  sufficient  to  provide  its  whole 
population  with  good  food  and  comfortable 
habitation ;  and  not  with  those  only,  but  with 
good  education  besides,  and  objects  of  luxury, 


I.      DISCOVERY    AND    x\PPLICATION.  J 

art  treasures,  such  as  these  you  have  around 
you  now.  But  by  those  same  laws  of  Nature 
and  Providence,  if  the  labour  of  the  nation 
or  of  the  individual  be  misapplied,  and  much 
more  if  it  be  insufficient, — if  the  nation  or  man 
be  indolent  and  unwise, — suffering  and  want 
result,  exactly  in  proportion  to  the  indolence 
and  improvidence — to  the  refusal  of  labour,  or 
to  the  misapplication  of  it.  Wherever  you  see 
want,  or  misery,  or  degradation,  in  this  world 
about  you,  there,  be  sure,  either  industry  has 
been  wanting,  or  industry  has  been  in  error. 
It  is  not  accident,  it  is  not  Heaven-commanded 
calamity,  it  is  not  the  original  and  inevitable 
evil  of  man's  nature,  which  fill  your  streets 
with  lamentation,  and  your  graves  with  prey. 
It  is  only  that,  when  there  should  have  been 
providence,  there  has  been  waste  ;  when  there 
should  have  been  labour,  there  has  been  lasci- 
viousness  ;  and  wilfulness,  when  there  should 
have  been  subordination.* 

8.  Now,  we  have  warped  the  word  "economy" 
in  our  English  language  into  a  meaning  which 
it  has  no  business  whatever  to  bear.     In  our 

*  Proverbs  xiii.  23  :  "  Much  food  is  in  the  tillage  of  the 
poor,  but  there  is  that  is  destroyed  for  want  of  judgment." 


8  A    JOY    FOR    EVER. 

use  of  it,  it  constantly  signifies  merely  sparing 
or  saving ;  economy  of  money  means  saving 
money — economy  of  time,  sparing  time,  and  so 
on.  But  that  is  a  wholly  barbarous  use  of 
the  word — barbarous  in  a  double  sense,  for  it 
is  not  English,  and  it  is  bad  Greek ;  barbarous 
in  a  treble  sense,  for  it  is  not  English,  it  is 
bad  Greek,  and  it  is  worse  sense.  Economy 
no  more  means  saving  money  than  it  means 
spending  money.  It  means,  the  administra- 
tion of  a  house;  its  stewardship;  spending 
or  saving,  that  is,  whether  money  or  time,  or 
anything  else,  to  the  best  possible  advantage. 
In  the  simplest  and  clearest  definition  of  it, 
economy,  whether  public  or  private,  means  the 
wise  management  of  labour;  and  it  means  this 
mainly  in  three  senses  :  namely,  first,  applying 
your  labour  rationally  ;  secondly,  preserving  its 
produce  carefully ;  lastly,  distributing  its  pro- 
duce seasonably. 

9.  I  say  first,  applying  your  labour  ration- 
ally ;  that  is,  so  as  to  obtain  the  most  precious 
things  you  can,  and  the  most  lasting  things, 
by  it  :  not  growing  oats  in  land  where  you  can 
grow  wheat,  nor  putting  fine  embroidery  on  a 
stuff  that  will  not  wear.     Secondly,  preserving 


I.     DISCOVERY    AND    APPLICATION.  9 

its  produce  carefully ;  that  is  to  say,  laying  up 
your  wheat  wisely  in  storehouses  for  the  time 
of  famine,  and  keeping  your  embroidery  watch- 
fully from  the  moth  :  and  lastly,  distributing  its 
produce  seasonably  ;  that  is  to  say,  being  able 
to  carry  your  corn  at  once  to  the  place  where 
the  people  are  hungry,  and  your  embroideries 
to  the  places  where  they  are  gay ;  so  fulfil- 
ling in  all  ways  the  Wise  Man's  description, 
whether  of  the  queenly  housewife  or  queenly 
nation  :  "  She  riseth  while  it  is  yet  night,  and 
giveth  meat  to  her  household,  and  a  portion 
to  her  maidens.  She  maketh  herself  coverings 
of  tapestry,  her  clothing  is  silk  and  purple. 
Strength  and  honour  are  in  her  clothing,  and 
she  shall  rejoice  in  time  to  come." 

10.  Now,  you  will  observe  that  in  this  de- 
scription of  the  perfect  economist,  or  mistress 
of  a  household,  there  is  a  studied  expression  of 
the  balanced  division  of  her  care  between  the 
two  great  objects  of  utility  and  splendour  :  in 
her  right  hand,  food  and  flax,  for  life  and 
clothing  ;  in  her  left  hand,  the  purple  and  the 
needlework,  for  honour  and  for  beauty.  All 
perfect  housewifery  or  national  economy  is 
known  by  these  two  divisions;  wherever  either 


I o  "a  joy  for  ever. 

is  wanting,  ti.e  economy  is  imperfect.  If  the 
motive  of  pomp  prevails,  and  the  care  of  the 
national  economist  is  directed  only  to  the 
accumulation  of  gold,  and  of  pictures,  and  ,of 
silk  and  marble,  you  know  at  ence  that  the 
time  must  soon  come  when  all  these  treasures 
shall  be  scattered  and  blasted  in  national  ruin. 
If,  on  the  contrary,  the  element  of  utility  pre- 
vails, and  the  nation  disdains  to  occupy  itself 
in  any  wise  with  the  arts  of  beauty  or  delight, 
not  only  a  certain  quantity  of  its  energy  calcu- 
lated for  exercise  in  those  arts  alone  must  be 
entirely  wasted,  which  is  bad  economy,  but 
also  the  passions  connected  with  the  utilities 
of  property  become  morbidly  strong,  and  a 
mean  lust  of  accumulation  merely  for  the  sake 
of  accumulation,  or  even  of  labour  merely  for 
the  sake  of  labour,  will  banish  at  last  the 
serenity  and  the  morality  of  life,  as  com- 
pletely, and  perhaps  more  ignobly,  than  even 
the  lavishness  of  pride,  and  the  likeness  of 
pleasure.  And  similarly,  and  much  more  visi- 
bly, in  private  and  household  economy,  you 
may  judge  always  of  its  perfectness  by  its 
fair  balance  between  the  use  and  the  pleasure 
of  its    possessions.      You    will   see   the   wise 


I.     DISCOVERY    AND    APPLICATION.  I  I 

cottager's  garden  trimly  divided  between  its 
well-set  vegetables,  and  its  fragrant  flowers ; 
you  will  see  the  good  housewife  taking  pride 
in  her  pretty  table-cloth,  and  her  glittering 
shelves,  no  less  than  in  her  well-dressed  dish, 
and  her  full  storeroom  ;  the  care  in  her  coun- 
tenance will  alternate  with  gaiety,  and  though 
you  will  reverence  her  in  her  seriousness,  you 
will  know  her  best  by  her  smile. 

II.  Now,  as  you  will  have  anticipated,  I  am 
going  to  address  you,  on  this  and  our  succeed- 
ing evening,  chiefly  on  the  subject  of  that  eco- 
nomy which  relates  rather  to  the  garden  than 
the  farm-yard.  I  shall  ask  you  to  consider 
with  me  the  kind  of  laws  by  which  we  shall 
best  distribute  the  beds  of  our  national  garden, 
and  raise  in  it  the  sweetest  succession  of  trees 
pleasant  to  the  sight,  and  (in  no  forbidden 
sense)  to  be  desired  to  make  us  wise.  But, 
before  proceeding  to  open  this  specialty  of 
our  subject,  let  me  pause  for  a  few  moments 
to  plead  with  you  for  the  acceptance  of  that 
principle  of  government  or  authorit}'  which 
must  be  at  the  root  of  all  economy,  whether  for 
use  or  for  pleasure.  I  said,  a  few  minutes  ago, 
that  a  nation's  labour,  well  applied,  was  amply 


12  "a  joy  for  ever." 

sufficient  to  provide  its  whole  population  with 
good  food,  comfortable  clothing,  and  pleasant 
luxury.  But  the  good,  instant,  and  constant 
application  is  everything.  We  must  not,  when 
our  strong  hands  are  thrown  out  of  work,  look 
wildly  about  for  want  of  something  to  do  with 
them.  If  ever  we  feel  that  want,  it  is  a  sign 
that  all  our  household  is  out  of  order.  Fancy 
a  farmer's  wife,  to  whom  one  or  two  of  her 
servants  should  come  at  twelve  o'clock  at  noon, 
crying  that  they  had  got  nothing  to  do  ;  that 
they  did  not  know  what  to  do  next :  and  fancy 
still  farther,  the  said  farmer's  wife  looking 
hopelessly  about  her  rooms  and  yard,  they 
being  all  the  while  considerably  in  disorder,  not 
knowing  where  to  set  the  spare  handmaidens 
to  work,  and  at  last  complaining  bitterly  that 
she  had  been  obliged  to  give  them  their  dinner 
for  nothing.  That's  the  type  of  the  kind  of 
political  economy  we  practise  too  often  in 
England.  Would  you  not  at  once  assert  of 
such  a  mistress  that  she  knew  nothing  of  her 
duties  ?  and  would  you  not  be  certain,  if  the 
household  were  rightly  managed,  the  mistress 
would  be  only  too  glad  at  any  moment  to  have 
the  help  of  any  number  of  spare  hands ;  that 


I.      DISCOVERY    AND    APPLICATION.  1 3 

she  would  know  in  an  instant  what  to  set  them 
to ; — in  an  instant  what  part  of  to-morrow's 
work  might  be  most  serviceably  forwarded, 
what  part  of  next  month's  work  most  wisely 
provided  for,  or  what  new  task  of  some  profit- 
able kind  undertaken  ;  and  when  the  evening 
came,  and  she  dismissed  her  servants  to  their 
recreation  or  their  rest,  or  gathered  them  to  the 
reading  round  the  work-table,  under  the  eaves 
in  the  sunset,  would  you  not  be  sure  to  find 
that  none  of  them  had  been  overtasked  by  her, 
just  because  none  had  been  left  idle ;  that 
everything  had  been  accomplished  because  all 
had  been  employed  ;  that  the  kindness  of  the 
mistress  had  aided  her  presence  of  mind,  and 
the  slight  labour  had  been  entrusted  to  the^ 
weak,  and  the  formidable  to  the  strong;  and 
that  as  none  had  been  dishonoured  by  inac- 
tivity, so  none  had  been  broken  by  toil  ? 

12.  Now,  the  precise  counterpart  of  such  a 
household  would  be  seen  in  a  nation  in  which 
political  economy  was  rightly  understood. 
You  complain  of  the  difficulty  of  finding  work 
for  your  men.  Depend  upon  it,  the  real  diffi- 
culty rather  is  to  find  men  for  your  work. 
The  serious  question  for  yor  is  not  how  many 


14  A    JOY    FOR    EVER. 

you  have  to  feed,  but  how  much  you  have  to 
do  ;  it  is  our  inactivity,  not  our  hunger,  that 
ruins  us  :  let  us  never  fear  that  our  servants 
should  have  a  good  appetite — our  wealth  is  in 
their  strength,  not  in  their  starvation.  Look 
around  this  island  of  yours,  and  see  what  you 
have  to  do  in  it.  The  sea  roars  against  your 
harbourless  cliffs — you  have  to  build  the 
breakwater,  and  dig  the  port  of  refuge ;  the 
unclean  pestilence  ravins  in  your  streets — 
you  have  to  bring  the  full  stream  from  the 
hills,  and  to  send  the  free  winds  through  the 
thoroughfare ;  the  famine  blanches  your  lips 
and  eats  away  your  flesh — you  have  to  dig  the 
moor  and  dry  the  marsh,  to  bid  the  morass 
.give  forth  instead  of  engulfing,  and  to  wring 
the  honey  and  oil  out  of  the  rock.  These 
things,  and  thousands  such,  we  have  to  do, 
and  shall  have  to  do  constantly,  on  this  great 
farm  of  ours  ;  for  do  not  suppose  that  it  is 
anything  else  than  that.  Precisely  the  same 
laws  of  economy  which  apply  to  the  cultivation 
of  a  farm  or  an  estate,  apply  to  the  cultivation 
of  a  province  or  of  an  island.  Whatever 
rebuke  you  would  address  to  the  improvident 
master  of  an  ill-managed  patrimony,  precisely 


I.      DISCOVERY    AND    APPLICATION.  I  5 

that  rebuke  we  should  address  to  ourselves, 
so  far  as  we  leave  our  population  in  idleness 
and  our  country  in  disorder.  What  would 
you  say  to  the  lord  of  an  estate  who  com- 
plained to  you  of  his  poverty  and  disabilities, 
and  when  you  pointed  out  to  him  that  his  land 
was  hah  of  it  overrun  with  weeds,  and  that  his 
fences  were  all  in  ruin,  and  that  his  cattle- 
sheds  were  roofless,  and  his  labourers  lying 
under  the  hedges  faint  for  want  of  food,  he 
answered  to  you  that  it  would  ruin  him  to 
weed  his  land  or  to  roof  his  sheds — that  those 
were  too  costly  operations  for  him  to  under- 
take, and  that  he  knew  not  how  to  feed  his 
labourers  nor  pay  them  ?  Would  you  not 
instantly  answer,  that  instead  of  ruining  him 
to  weed  his  fields,  it  would  save  him ;  that 
his  inactivity  was  his  destruction,  and  that  to 
set  his  labourers  to  work  was  to  feed  them  ? 
Now,  you  may  add  acre  to  acre,  and  estate  to 
estate,  as  far  as  you  like,  but  you  will  never 
reach  a  compass  of  ground  which  shall  escape 
from  the  authority  of  these  simple  laws.  The 
principles  which  are  right  in  the  administra- 
tion of  a  few  fields,  are  right  also  in  the  ad- 
ministration of  a  great   country  from   horizon 


1 6  "a  joy  for  ever." 

to  horizon :  idleness  does  not  cease  to  be 
ruinous  because  it  is  extensive,  nor  labour  to 
be  productive  because  it  is  universal. 

13.  Nay,  but- you  reply,  there  is  one  vast 
difference  between  the  nation's  economy  and 
the  private  man's  :  the  farmer  has  full  autho- 
rity over  his  labourers ;  he  can  direct  them  to 
do  what  is  needed  to  be  done,  whether  they 
like  it  or  not  ;  and  he  can  turn  them  away  if 
they  refuse  to  work,  or  impede  others  in  their 
working,  or  are  disobedient,  or  quarrelsome. 
There  is  this  great  difference ;  it  is  precisely 
this  difference  on  which  I  wish  to  fix  your 
attention,  for  it  is  precisely  this  difference 
which  you  have  to  do  away  with.  We  know 
the  necessity  of  authority  in  farm,  or  in  fleet, 
or  in  army;  but  we  commonly  refuse  to  admit 
it  in  the  body  of  the  nation.  Let  us  consider 
this  point  a  little. 

14.  In  the  various  awkward  and  unfortunate 
efforts  which  the  French  have  made  at  the 
development  of  a  social  system,  they  have  at 
least  stated  one  true  principle,  that  of  frater- 
nity or  brotherhood.  Do  not  be  alarmed  ;  they 
got  all  wrong  in  their  experiments,  because 
they  quite  forgot    that   this  fact  of  fraternity 


I.     DISCOVERY    AND    APPLICATION.  1 7 

implied  another  fact  quite  as  important — 
that  of  paternity,  or  fatherhood.  That  is  to 
say,  if  they  were  to  regard  the  nation  as  one 
family,  the  condition  of  unity  in  that  family 
consisted  no  less  in  their  having  a  head, 
or  a  father,  than  in  their  being  faithful  and 
affectionate  members,  or  brothers.  But  we 
must  not  forget  this,  for  we  have  long  con- 
fessed it  with  our  lips,  though  we  refuse 
to  confess  it  in  our  lives.  For  half  an  hour 
every  Sunday  we  expect  a  man  in  a  black 
gown,  supposed  to  be  telling  us  truth,  to  ad- 
dress us  as  brethren,  though  we  should  be 
shocked  at  the  notion  of  any  brotherhood  ex- 
isting among  us  out  of  church.  And  we  can 
hardly  read  a  few  sentences  on  any  political 
subject  without  running  a  chance  of  cross- 
ing the  phrase  "paternal  government,"  though 
we  should  be  utterly  horror-struck  at  the 
idea  of  governments  claiming  anything  like 
a  father's  authority  over  us.  Now,  I  believe 
those  two  formal  phrases  are  in  both  instances 
perfectly  binding  and  accurate,  and  that  the 
image  of  the  farm  and  its  servants  which  I 
have  hitherto  used,  as  expressing  a  wholesome 
national  organization,    fails  only    of  doing  so, 

2 


1 8  "a  joy  for  ever." 

not  because  it  is  too  domestic,  but  because  it 
is  not  domestic  enough  ;  because  the  real  type 
of  a  well-organized  nation  must  be  presented, 
not  by  a  farm  cultivated  by  servants  who 
wrought  for  hire,  and  might  be  turned  away 
if  they  refused  to  labour,  but  by  a  farm  in 
which  the  master  was  a  father,  and  in  which 
all  the  servants  were  sons ;  which  implied, 
therefore,  in  all  its  regulations,  not  merely  the 
order  of  expediency,  but  the  bonds  of  affection 
and  responsibilities  of  relationship ;  and  in 
which  all  acts  and  services  were  not  only  to 
be  sweetened  by  brotherly  concord,  but  to  be 
enforced  by  fatherly  authority.* 

15.  Observe,  I  do  not  mean  in  the  least 
that  we  ought  to  place  such  an  authority  in  the 
hands  of  any  one  person,  or  of  any  class  or 
body  of  persons.  But  I  do  mean  to  say  that 
as  an  individual  who  conducts  himself  wisely 
must  make  laws  for  himself  which  at  some 
time  or  other  may  appear  irksome  or  injurious, 
but  which,  precisely  at  the  time  they  appear 
most  irksome,  it  is  most  necessary  he  should 
obey,  so  a  nation  which  means  to  conduct 
itself  wisely,  must  establish  authority  over 
*  See  note  1st,  in  .Addenda. 


I.     DISCOVERY    AND    APPLICATION.  1 9 

itself,  vested  either  in  kings,  councils,  or  laws, 
which  it  must  resolve  to  obey,  even  at  times 
when  the  law  or  authority  appears  irksome  to 
the  body  of  the  people,  or  injurious  to  certain 
masses  of  it.  And  this  kind  of  national  law 
has  hitherto  been  only  judicial ;  contented,  that 
is,  with  an  endeavour  to  prevent  and  punish 
violence  and  crime :  but,  as  we  advance  in 
our  social  knowledge,  we  shall  endeavour 
to  make  our  government  paternal  as  well  as 
judicial ;  that  is,  to  establish  such  laws  and 
authorities  as  may  at  once  direct  us  in  our 
occupations,  protect  us  against  our  follies,  and 
visit  us  in  our  distresses  :  a  government  which 
shall  repress  dishonesty,  as  now  it  punishes 
theft ;  which  shall  show  how  the  discipline 
of  the  masses  may  be  brought  to  aid  the 
toils  of  peace,  as  discipline  of  the  masses  has 
hitherto  knit  the  sinews  of  battle ;  a  govern- 
ment which  shall  have  its  soldiers  of  the 
ploughshare  as  well  as  its  soldiers  of  the 
sword,  and  which  shall  distribute  more  proudly 
its  golden  crosses  of  industry — golden  as  the 
glow  of  the  harvest,  than  now  it  grants  its 
bronze  crosses  of  honour — bronzed  with  the 
crimson  of  blood. 


20  A   JOY    FOR    EVER. 

1 6.  I  have  not,  of  course,  time  to  insist  on 
the  nature  or  details  of  government  of  this 
kind  ;  only  I  wish  to  plead  for  your  several  and 
future  consideration  of  this  one  truth,  that  the 
notion  of  Discipline  and  Interference  lies  at 
the  very  root  of  all  human  progress  or  power ; 
that  the  "  Let-alone  "  principle  is,  in  all  things 
which  man  has  to  do  with,  the  principle  of 
death  ;  that  it  is  ruin  to  him,  certain  and  total, 
if  he  lets  his  land  alone — if  he  lets  his  fellow- 
men  alone — if  he  lets  his  own  soul  alone. 
That  his  whole  life,  on  the  contrary,  must,  if  it 
is  healthy  life,  be  continually  one  of  ploughing 
and  pruning,  rebuking  and  helping,  governing 
and  punishing  ;  and  that  therefore  it  is  only 
in  the  concession  of  some  great  principle  of 
restraint  and  interference  in  national  action 
that  he  can  ever  hope  to  find  the  secret  of 
protection  against  national  degradation.  I 
believe  that  the  masses  have  a  right  to  claim 
education  from  their  government ;  but  only 
so  far  as  they  acknowledge  the  duty  of  yield- 
ing obedience  to  their  government.  I  believe 
they  have  a  right  to  claim  employment  from 
their  governors ;  but  only  so  far  as  they  yield 
to    the    governor    the    direction  and  discipline 


I.     DISCOVERY    AND    APPLICATION.  21 

of  their  labour;  and  it  is  only  so  far  as  they 
grant  to  the  men  whom  they  may  set  over 
them  the  father's  authority  to  check  the  child- 
ishnesses of  national  fancy,  and  direct  the 
waywardnesses  of  national  energy,  that  they 
have  a  right  to  ask  that  none  of  their  distresses 
should  be  unrelieved,  none  of  their  weaknesses 
unwatched ;  and  that  no  grief,  nor  nakedness, 
nor  peril,  should  exist  for  them,  against  which 
the  father's  hand  was  not  outstretched,  or  the 
father's  shield  uplifted.  * 

17.  Now,  I  have  pressed  this  upon  you  at 

*  Compare  Wordsworth's  Essay  on  the  Poor  Law  Amend- 
ment Bill.  I  quote  one  important  passage  :  '-But.  if  it  be 
not  safe  to  touch  the  abstract  question  of  man's  right  in  a 
social  state  to  help  himself  even  in  the  last  extremity,  may 
we  not  still  contend  for  the  du-y  of  a  Christian  government, 
standing  in  loco  parentis  towards  all  its  subjects,  to  make 
such  effectual  provision  that  no  one  shall  be  in  danger  of 
perishing  either  through  the  neglect  or  harshness  of  iis  legis- 
lation? Or,  waiving  this,  is  it  not  indisputable  that  die 
claim  of  the  State  to  the  allegiance,  involves  the  protection 
of  the  subject?  And.  as  all  rights  in  one  party  impose  a 
correlative  duty  upon  another,  it  follows  that  the  right  of 
the  State  to  require  the  services  of  its  members,  even  to  the 
jeoparding  of  their  lives  in  the  common  defence,  establishes 
a  right  in  the  people  (not  to  be  gainsaid  by  utilitarians  and 
economists)  to  public  support  when,  from  any  cause,  they 
may  be  unable  to  support  themselves."  -(See  note  2nd,  in 
Addenda.) 


22  "  A   JOY    FOR    EVER. 

more  length  than  is  needful  or  proportioned 
to  our  present  purposes  of  inquiry,  because  I 
would  not  for  the  first  time  speak  to  you  on 
this  subject  of  political  economy  without  clearly 
stating  what  I  believe  to  be  its  first  grand 
principle.  But  its  bearing  on  the  matter  in 
hand  is  chiefly  to  prevent  you  from  at  once 
too  violently  dissenting  from  me  when  what 
I  may  state  to  you  as  advisable  economy  in  art 
appears  to  imply  too  much  restraint  or  inter- 
ference with  the  freedom  of  the  patron  or 
artist.  We  are  a  little  apt,  though  on  the 
whole  a  prudent  nation,  to  act  too  immediately 
on  our  impulses,  even  in  matters  merely 
commercial ;  much  more  in  those  involving 
continual  appeals  to  our  fancies.  How  far, 
therefore,  the  proposed  systems  or  restraints 
may  be  advisable,  it  is  for  you  to  judge  ;  only  I 
pray  you  not  to  be  offended  with  them  merely 
because  they  are  systems  and   restraints. 

1 8.  Do  you  at  all  recollect  that  interesting 
passage  of  Carlyle,  in  which  he  compares,  in 
this  country  and  at  this  day,  the  understood 
and  commercial  value  of  man  and  horse  ;  and 
in  which  he  wonders  that  the  horse,  with  its 
inferior    brains    and    its    awkward    hoofiness, 


I.     DISCOVERY    AND    APPLICA1ION.  23 

instead  of  handiness,  should  be  always  worth 
so  many  tens  or  scores  of  pounds  in  the 
market,  while  the  man,  so  far  from  always 
commanding  his  price  in  the  market,  would 
often  be  thought  to  confer  a  service  on  the 
community  by  simply  killing  himself  out  of 
their  way  ?  Well,  Carlyle  does  not  answer  his 
own  question,  because  he  supposes  we  shall  at 
once  see  the  answer.  The  value  of  the  horse 
consists  simply  in  the  fact  of  your  being  able 
to  put  a  bridle  on  him.  The  value  of  the  man 
consists  precisely  in  the  same  thing.  If  you 
can  bridle  him,  or,  which  is  better,  if  he  can 
bridle  himself,  he  will  be  a  valuable  creature 
directly.  Otherwise,  in  a  commercial  point  of 
view,  his  value  is  either  nothing,  or  accidental 
only.  Only,  of  course,  the  proper  bridle  of  man 
is  not  a  leathern  one  :  what  kind  of  texture 
it  is  rightly  made  of,  we  find  from  that  com- 
mand, "  Be  ye  not  as  the  horse  or  as  the  mule 
which  have  no  understanding,  whose  mouths 
must  be  held  in  with  bit  and  bridle."  You  are 
not  to  be  without  the  reins,  indeed  ;  but  they 
are  to  be  of  another  kind  :  "  I  will  guide  thee 
with  mine  Eye."  So  the  bridle  of  man  is  to  be 
the  Eye  of  God  ;  and  if  he  rejects  that  guidance, 


24  "a  joy  for  ever. 

then  the  next  best  for  him  is  the  horse's  and 
the  mule's,  which  have  no  understanding  ;  and 
if  he  rejects  that,  and  takes  the  bit  fairly  in  his 
teeth,  then  there  is  nothing  left  for  him  than 
the  blood  that  comes  out  of  the  city,  up  to  the 
horse-bridles. 

19.  Quitting,  however,  at  last  these  general 
and  serious  laws  of  government — or  rather 
bringing  them  down  to  our  own  business  in 
hand — we  have  to  consider  three  points  of 
discipline  in  that  particular  branch  of  human 
labour  which  is  concerned,  not  with  procuring 
of  food,  but  the  expression  of  emotion ;  we 
have  to  consider  respecting  art :  first,  how  to 
apply  our  labour  to  it ;  then,  how  to  accumulate 
or  preserve  the  results  of  labour;  and  then, 
how  to  distribute  them.  But  since  in  art  the 
labour  which  we  have  to  employ  is  the  labour 
of  a  particular  class  of  men — men  who  have 
special  genius  for  the  business — we  have  not 
only  to  consider  how  to  apply  the  labour,  but, 
first  of  all,  how  to  produce  the  labourer;  and 
thus  the  question  in  this  particular  case  becomes 
fourfold  :  first,  how  to  get  your  man  of  genius ; 
then,  how  to  employ  your  man  of  genius;  then, 
how  to  accumulate  and  preserve  his  work  in 


I.     DISCOVERY    AND    APPLICATION.  25 

the  greatest  quantity ;  and,  lastly,  how  to  dis- 
tribute his  work  to  the  best  national  advantage. 
Let  us  take  up  these  questions  in  succession. 

20.  I.  Discovery.— How  are  we  to  get  our 
men  of  genius  :  that  is  to  say,  by  what  means 
may  we  produce  among  us,  at  any  given  time, 
the  greatest  quantity  of  effective  art-intellect  ? 
A  wide  question,  you  say,  involving  an  ac- 
count of  all  the  best  means  of  art  education. 
Yes,  but  I  do  not  mean  to  go  into  the  con- 
sideration of  those  ;  I  want  only  to  state  the 
few  principles  which  lie  at  the  foundation  of 
the  matter.  Of  these,  the  first  is  that  you 
have  always  to  find  your  artist,  not  to  make 
him;  you  can't  manufacture  him,  any  more 
than  you  can  manufacture  gold.  You  can  find 
him,  and  refine  him  :  you  dig  him  out  as  he  lies 
nugget-fashion  in  the  mountain-stream ;  you 
bring  him  home  ;  and  you  make  him  into  cur- 
rent coin,  or  household  plate,  but  not  one  grain 
of  him  can  you  originally  produce.  A  certain 
quantity  of  art-intellect  is  born  annually  in 
every  nation,  greater  or  less  according  to  the 
nature  and  cultivation  of  the  nation,  or  race  of 
men  ;  but  a  perfectly  fixed  quantity   annually, 


26  "a  joy  for  ever." 

not  increasable  by  one  grain.  You  may  lose 
it,  or  you  may  gather  it ;  you  may  let  it  lie 
loose  in  the  ravine,  and  buried  in  the  sands, 
or  you  may  make  kings'  thrones  of  it,  and 
overlay  temple  gates  with  it,  as  you  choose  : 
but  the  best  you  can  do  with  it  is  always 
merely  sifting,  melting,  hammering,  purifying 
■ — never  creating. 

21.  And  there  is  another  thing  notable  about 
this  artistical  gold  ;  not  only  is  it  limited  in 
quantity,  but  in  use.  You  need  not  make 
thrones  or  golden  gates  with  it  unless  you  like, 
but  assuredly  you  can't  do  anything  else  with 
it.  You  can't  make  knives  of  it,  nor  armour, 
nor  railroads.  The  gold  won't  cut  you,  and 
it  won't  carry  you :  put  it  to  a  mechanical 
use,  and  you  destroy  it  at  once.  It  is  quite 
true  that  in  the  greatest  artists,  their  proper 
artistical  faculty  is  united  with  every  other ; 
and  you  may  make  use  of  the  other  faculties, 
and  let  the  artistical  one  lie  dormant.  For 
aught  I  know,  there  may  be  two  or  three 
Leonardo  da  Vincis  employed  at  this  mo- 
ment in  your  harbours  and  railroads  :  but 
you  are  not  employing  their  Leonardesque  or 
golden  faculty  there, — you  are  only  oppressing 


I.     DISCOVERY    AND    APPLICATION.  2J 

and  destroying  it.  And  the  artistical  gift  in 
average  men  is  not  joined  with  others  :  your 
born  painter,  if  you  don't  make  a  painter  of 
him,  won't  be  a  first-rate  merchant,  or  lawyer  ; 
at  all  events,  whatever  he  turns  out,  his  own 
special  gift  is  unemployed  by  you ;  and  in 
no  wise  helps  him  in  that  other  business.  So 
here  you  have  a  certain  quantity  of  a  particular 
sort  of  intelligence,  produced  for  you  annually 
by  providential  laws,  which  you  can  only  make 
use  of  by  setting  it  to  its  own  proper  work, 
and  which  any  attempt  to  use  otherwise  in- 
volves the  dead  loss  of  so  much  human  energy. 
22.  Well  then,  supposing  we  wish  to  employ 
it,  how  is  it  to  be  best  discovered  and  refined  ? 
It  is  easily  enough  discovered.  To  wish  to 
employ  it  is  to  discover  it.  All  that  you  need 
is,  a  school  of  trial  *  in  every  important  town, 
in  which  those  idle  farmers'  lads  whom  their 
masters  never  can  keep  out  of  mischief,  and 
those  stupid  tailors'  'prentices  who  are  always 
stitching  the  sleeves  in  wrong  way  upwards, 
may  have  a  try  at  this  other  trade  ;  only  this 
school  of  trial  must  not  be  entirely  regulated 
by  formal  laws  of  art  education,  but  must 
*  See  note  3rd,  in  Acidemia. 


28  "a  joy  for  ever." 

ultimately  be  the  workshop  of  a  gcod  master 
painter,  who  will  try  the  lads  with  one  kind 
of  art  and  another,  till  he  finds  out  what  they 
are  fit  for. 

23.  Next,  after  your  trial  school,  you  want 
your  easy  and  secure  employment,  which  is  the 
matter  of  chief  importance.  For,  even  on  the 
present  system,  the  boys  who  have  really  in- 
tense art  capacity,  generally  make  painters  of 
themselves;  but  then,  the  best  half  of  their 
early  energy  is  lost  in  the  battle  of  life.  Before 
a  good  painter  can  get  employment,  his  mind 
has  always  been  embittered,  and  his  genius 
distorted.  A  common  mind  usually  stoops,  in 
plastic  chill,  to  whatever  is  asked  of  it,  and 
scrapes  or  daubs  its  way  complacently  into 
public  favour.*  But  your  great  men  quarrel 
with  you,  and  you  revenge  yourselves  by 
starving  them  for  the  first  half  of  their  lives. 
Precisely  in  the  degree  in  which  any  painter 
possesses  original  genius,  is  at  present  the 
increase  of  moral  certainty  that  during  his 
early  years  he  will  have  a  hard  battle  to  fight ; 
and  that  just  at  the  time  when  his  concep- 
tions ought  to  be  full  and  happy,  his  temper 
*  See  note  4th,  in  Addenda. 


I.     DISCOVERY   AND   APPLICATION.  29 

gentle,  and  his  hopes  enthusiastic — just  at  that 
most  critical  period,  his  heart  is  full  of  anxi- 
eties and  household  cares ;  he  is  chilled  by 
disappointments,  and  vexed  by  injustice ;  he 
becomes  obstinate  in  his  errors,  no  less  than 
in  his  virtues,  and  the  arrows  of  his  aims  are 
blunted,  as  the  reeds  of  his  trust  are  broken. 

24.  What  we  mainly  want,  therefore,  is  a 
means  of  sufficient  and  unagitated  employment: 
not  holding  out  great  prizes  for  which  young 
painters  are  to  scramble ;  but  furnishing  all 
with  adequate  support,  and  opportunity  to 
display  such  power  as  they  possess  without 
rejection  or  mortification.  I  need  not  say  that 
the  best  field  of  labour  of  this  kind  w7ould  be 
presented  by  the  constant  progress  of  public 
works  involving  various  decoration ;  and  we 
will  presently  examine  wThat  kind  of  public, 
works  may  thus,  advantageously  for  the  nation, 
be  in  constant  progress.  But  a  more  impor- 
tant matter  even  than  this  of  steady  employ- 
ment, is  the  kind  of  criticism  with  which  you, 
the  public,  receive  the  works  of  the  young  men 
submitted  to  you.  You  may  do  much  harm 
by  indiscreet  praise  and  by  indiscreet  blame  ; 
but  remember  the  chief  harm  is  ahvays  done 


30  "a  joy  for  ever." 

by  blame.  It  stands  to  reason  that  a  young 
man's  work  cannot  be  perfect.  It  must  be 
more  or  less  ignorant ;  it  must  be  more  or  less 
feeble  ;  it  is  likely  that  it  may  be  more  or  less 
experimental,  and  if  experimental,  here  and 
there  mistaken.  If,  therefore,  you  allow  your- 
self to  launch  out  into  sudden  barking  at  the 
first  faults  you  see,  the  probability  is  that  you 
are  abusing  the  youth  for  some  defect  naturally 
and  inevitably  belonging  to  that  stage  of  his 
progress  ;  and  that  you  might  just  as  rationally 
find  fault  with  a  child  for  not  being  as  prudent 
as  a  privy  councillor,  or  with  a  kitten  for  not 
being  as  grave  as  a  cat. 

25.  But  there  is  one  fault  which  you  may  be 
quite  sure  is  unnecessary,  and  therefore  a  real 
and  blamable  fault  :  that  is  haste,  involving 
negligence.  Whenever  you  see  that  a  young 
man's  work  is  either  bold  or  slovenly,  then 
you  may  attack  it  firmly  ;  sure  of  being  right. 
If  his  work  is  bold,  it  is  insolent ;  repress 
his  insolence  :  if  it  is  slovenly,  it  is  indolent ; 
spur  his  indolence.  So  long  as  he  works  in 
that  dashing  or  impetuous  way,  the  best  hope 
for  him  is  in  your  contempt :  and  it  is  only 
by  the   fact   of  his   seeming   not  to  seek  your 


I.     DISCOVERY    AND    APPLICATION.  3  I 

approbation   that  you    may   conjecture  he  de- 
serves it. 

26.  But  if  he  does  deserve  it,  be  sure  tha+" 
you  give  it  him,  else  you  not  only  run  a  chance 
of  driving  him  from  the  right  road  by  want  of 
encouragement,  but  you  deprive  yourselves  of 
the  happiest  privilege  you  will  ever  have  of  re- 
warding his  labour.  For  it  is  only  the  young 
who  can  receive  much  reward  from  men's 
praise  :  the  old,  when  they  are  great,  get  too 
far  beyond  and  above  you  to  care  what  you 
think  of  them.  You  may  urge  them  then  with 
sympathy,  and  surround  them  then  with  accla- 
mation ;  but  they  will  doubt  your  pleasure,  and 
despise  your  praise.  You  might  have  cheered 
them  in  their  race  through  the  asphodel  mea- 
dows of  their  youth  ;  you  might  have  brought 
the  proud,  bright  scarlet  into  their  faces,  if 
you  had  but  cried  once  to  them  "Well  done," 
as  they  dashed  up  to  the  first  goal  of  their 
early  ambition.  But  now,  their  pleasure  is  in 
memory,  and  their  ambition  is  in  heaven. 
They  can  be  kind  to  you,  but  you  nevermore 
can  be  kind  to  them.  You  may  be  fed  with 
the  fruit  and  fulness  of  t^eir  old  age,  but  you 
were  as  the  nipping  blight    to  them    in  their 


32  "a  joy  for  ever." 

blossoming,   and    your    praise    is    only  as    the 
warm  winds  of  autumn  to  the  dying  branches. 

27.  There  is  one  thought  still,  the  saddest 
of  all,  bearing  on  this  withholding  of  early 
help.  It  is  possible,  in  some  noble  natures, 
that  the  warmth  and  the  affections  of  childhood 
may  remain  unchilled,  though  unanswered ; 
and  that  the  old  man's  heart  may  still  be 
capable  of  gladness,  when  the  long-withheld 
sympathy  is  given  at  last.  But  in  these  noble 
natures  it  nearly  always  happens  that  the  chief 
motive  of  earthly  ambition  has  not  been  to 
give  delight  to  themselves,  but  to  their  parents. 
Every  noble  youth  looks  back,  as  to  the 
chiefest  joy  which  this  world's  honour  ever 
gave  him,  to  the  moment  when  first  he  saw  his 
father's  eyes  flash  with  pride,  and  his  mother 
turn  away  her  head,  lest  he  should  take  her 
tears  for  tears  of  sorrow.  Even  the  lover's 
joy,  when  some  worthiness  of  his  is  acknow- 
ledged before  his  mistress,  is  not  so  great  as 
that,  for  it  is  not  so  pure — the  desire  to  exalt 
himself  in  her  e3'es  mixes  with  that  of  giving 
her  delight ;  but  he  does  not  need  to  exalt 
himself  in  his  parents'  eyes :  it  is  with  the 
pure    hope   of  giving    them    pleasure    that   he 


I.     DISCOVERY    AND    APPLICATION.  33 

comes  to  tell  them  what  he  has  done,  or  what 
has  been  said  of  him  ;  and  therefore  he  has  a 
purer  pleasure  of  his  own.  And  this  purest 
and  best  of  rewards  you  keep  from  him  if 
you  can  :  you  feed  him  in  his  tender  youth 
with  ashes  and  dishonour ;  and  then  you  come 
to  him,  obsequious,  but  too  late,  with  your 
sharp  laurel  crown,  the  dew  all  dried  from  off 
its  leaves  ;  and  you  thrust  it  into  his  languid 
hand,  and  he  looks  at  you  wistfully.  What 
shall  he  do  with  it  ?  What  can  he  do,  but  go 
and  lay  it  on  his  mother's  grave  ? 

28.  Thus,  then,  you  see  that  you  have  to 
provide  for  your  young  men  :  first,  the  search- 
ing or  discovering  school  ;  then  the  calm  em- 
ployment ;  then  the  justice  of  praise  :  one  thing 
more  you  have  to  do  for  them  in  prepar- 
ing them  for  full  service — namely,  to  make,  in 
the  noble  sense  of  the  word,  gentlemen  of 
them  ;  that  is  to  say,  to  take  care  that  their 
minds  receive  such  training,  that  in  all  they 
paint  they  shall  see  and  feel  the  noblest  things. 
I  am  sorry  to  say,  that  of  all  parts  of  an 
artist's  education,  this  is  the  most  neglected 
among  us ;  and  that  even  where  the  natural 
taste  and  feeling  of  the  youth  have  been  pure 

3 


34  "  A    J°Y    FOR    EVER." 

and  true,  where  there  was  the  right  stuff  in 
him  to  make  a  gentleman  of,  you  may  too 
frequently  discern  some  jarring  rents  in  his 
mind,  and  elements  of  degradation  in  his  treat- 
ment of  subject,  owing  to  want  of  gentle  train- 
ing, and  of  the  liberal  influence  of  literature. 
This  is  quite  visible  in  our  greatest  artists, 
even  in  men  like  Turner  and  Gainsborough ; 
while  in  the  common  grade  of  our  second-rate 
painters  the  evil  attains  a  pitch  which  is  far 
too  sadly  manifest  to  need  my  dwelling  upon 
it.  Now,  no  branch  of  art  economy  is  more 
important  than  that  of  making  the  intellect 
at  your  disposal  pure  as  well  as  powerful ;  so 
that  it  may  always  gather  for  you  the  sweetest 
and  fairest  things.  The  same  quantity  of 
labour  from  the  same  man's  hand,  will,  accord- 
ing as  you  have  trained  him,  produce  a  lovely 
and  useful  work,  or  a  base  and  hurtful  one ; 
and  depend  upon  it,  whatever  value  it  may 
possess,  by  reason  of  the  painter's  skill,  its 
chief  and  final  value,  to  any  nation,  depends 
upon  its  being  able  to  exalt  and  refine,  as  well 
as  to  please ;  and  that  the  picture  which  most 
truly  deserves  the  name  of  an  art-treasure  is 
that  which  has  been  painted  by  a  good  man. 


I.     DISCOVERY    AND    APPLICATION.  $5 

29.  You  cannot  but  see  how  far  this  would 
lead,  if  I  were  to  enlarge  upon  it.  I  must 
take  it  up  as  a  separate  subject  some  other 
time  :  only  noticing  at  present  that  no  money 
could  be  better  spent  by  a  nation  than  in  pro- 
viding a  liberal  and  disciplined  education  for 
its  painters,  as  they  advance  into  the  critical 
period  of  their  youth  ;  and  that,  also,  a  large 
part  of  their  power  during  life  depends  upon 
the  kind  of  subjects  which  you,  the  public,  ask 
them  for,  and  therefore  the  kind  of  thoughts 
with  which  you  require  them  to  be  habitually 
familiar.  I  shall  have  more  to  say  on  this 
head  when  we  come  to  consider  what  employ- 
ment they  should  have  in  public  buildings. 

30.  There  are  many  other  points  of  nearly 
as  much  importance  as  these,  to  be  explained 
with  reference  to  the  development  of  genius  ; 
but  I  should  have  to  ask  you  to  come  and  hear 
six  lectures  instead,  of  two  if  I  were  to  go  into 
their  detail.  For  instance,  I  have  not  spoken 
of  the  way  in  which  you  ought  to  look  for 
those  artificers  in  various  manual  trades,  who, 
without  possessing  the  order  of  genius  which 
you  would  desire  to  devote  to  higher  purposes, 
yet    possess   wit,    and   humour,    and    sense    of 


36  "a  joy  for  ever." 

colour,  and  fancy  for  form — all  commercially 
valuable  as  quantities  of  intellect,  and  all  more 
or  less  expressible  in  the  lower  arts  of  iron- 
work, pottery,  decorative  sculpture,  and  such 
like.  But  these  details,  interesting  as  they 
are,  I  must  commend  to  your  own  considera- 
tion, or  leave  for  some  future  inquiry.  I  want 
just  now  only  to  set  the  bearings  of  the  entire 
subject  broadly  before  you,  with  enough  of 
detailed  illustration  to  make  it  intelligible  ;  and 
therefore  I  must  quit  the  first  head  of  it  here, 
and  pass  to  the  second — namely,  how  best  to 
employ  the  genius  we  discover.  A  certain 
quantity  of  able  hands  and  heads  being  placed 
at  our  disposal,  what  shall  we  most  advisably 
set  them  upon  ? 

31.  II.  Application. — There  are  three  main 
points  the  economist  has  to  attend  to  in 
this. 

First,  To  set  his  men  to  various  work. 
Secondly,  To  easy  work. 
Thirdly,  To  lasting  work. 
I    shall   briefly  touch  on  ihe  first  two,  for  I 
want  to  arrest  your  attention  en  the  last. 

32.  I  say  first   to  various  work.     Supposing 


I.     DISCOVERY    AND    APPLICATION.  2)7 

you  have  two  men  of  equal  power  as  landscape 
painters — and  both  of  them  have  an  hour  at 
your  disposal.  You  would  not  set  them  both 
to  paint  the  same  piece  of  landscape.  You 
would,  of  course,  rather  have  two  subjects 
than  a  repetition  of  one. 

Well,  supposing  them  sculptors,  will  not  the 
same  rule  hold  ?  You  naturally  conclude  at 
once  that  it  will ;  but  }rou  will  have  hard  work 
to  convince  your  modern  architects  of  that. 
They  will  put  twenty  men  to  work,  to  carve 
twenty  capitals  ;  and  all  shall  be  the  same. 
If  I  could  show  you  the  architects'  yards  in 
England  just  now,  all  open  at  once,  perhaps 
you  might  see  a  thousand  clever  men,  all 
employed  in  carving  the  same  design.  Of 
the  degradation  and  deathfulness  to  the  art- 
intellect  of  the  country  involved  in  such  a 
habit,  I  have  more  or  less  been  led  to  speak 
before  now  ;  but  I  have  not  hitherto  marked 
its  definite  tendency  to  increase  the  price  of 
work,  as  such.  When  men  are  employed  con- 
tinually in  carving  the  same  ornaments,  they 
get  into  a  monotonous  and  methodical  habit 
of  labour — precisely  correspondent  to  that 
in    which    they   would    break  stones,   or  paint 


394781 


2>d  "A    JOY    FOR    EVER.' 

house-walls.  Of  course,  what  they  do  so  con- 
stantly, they  do  easily ;  and  if  you  excite  them 
temporarily  by  an  increase  of  wages,  you  may 
get  much  work  done  by  them  in  a  little  time. 
But,  unless  so  stimulated,  men  condemned  to 
a  monotonous  exertion,  work — and  always,  by 
the  laws  of  human  nature,  must  work — only 
at  a  tranquil  rate,  not  producing  by  any  means 
a  maximum  result  in  a  given  time.  But  if  you 
allow  them  to  vary  their  designs,  and  thus 
interest  their  heads  and  hearts  in  what  they 
are  doing,  you  will  find  them  become  eager, 
first,  to  get  their  ideas  expressed,  and  then  to 
finish  the  expression  of  them  ;  and  the  moral 
energy  thus  brought  to  bear  on  the  matter 
quickens,  and  therefore  cheapens,  the  produc- 
tion in  a  most  important  degree.  Sir  Thomas 
Deane,  the  architect  of  the  new  Museum  at 
Oxford,  told  me,  as  I  passed  through  Oxford 
on  my  way  here,  that  he  found  that,  owing 
to  this  cause  alone,  capitals  of  various  design 
could  be  executed  cheaper  than  capitals  of 
similar  design  (the  amount  of  hand  labour  in 
each  being  the  same)  by  about  30  per  cent. 
33.  Well,  that  is  the  first  way,  then,  in 
which    you    will   employ   your    intellect   well ; 


I.      DISCOVERY    AND    APPLICATION.  39 

and  the  simple  observance  of  this  plain  rule 
of  political  economy  will  effect  a  noble  revolu- 
tion in  your  architecture,  such  as  you  cannot 
at  present  so  much  as  conceive.  Then  the 
second  way  in  which  we  are  to  guard  against 
waste  is  by  setting  our  men  to  the  easiest,  and 
therefore  the  quickest,  work  which  will  an- 
swer the  purpose.  Marble,  for  instance,  lasts 
quite  as  long  as  granite,  and  is  much  softer 
to  work  ;  therefore,  when  you  get  hold  of  a 
good  sculptor,  give  him  marble  to  carve — not 
granite. 

34.  That,  you  say,  is  obvious  enough.  Yes  ; 
but  it  is  not  so  obvious  how  much  of  your 
workmen's  time  you  waste  annually  in  making 
them  cut  glass,  after  it  has  got  hard,  when  you 
ought  to  make  them  mould  it  while  it  is  soft. 
It  is  not  so  obvious  how  much  expense  you 
waste  in  cutting  diamonds  and  rubies,  which 
are  the  hardest  things  you  can  find,  into 
shapes  that  mean  nothing,  when  the  same 
men  might  be  cutting  sandstone  and  freestone 
into  shapes  that  meant  something.  It  is  net 
so  obvious  how  much  of  the  artists'  time  in 
Italy  you  waste,  by  forcing  them  to  make 
wretched  little  pictures  for  you  out  of  crumbs 


4-0  "a  joy  for  ever." 

of  stone  glued  together  at  enormous  cost, 
when  the  tenth  of  the  time  would  make  good 
and  noble  pictures  for  you  out  of  water-colour. 

35.  I  could  go  on  giving  you  almost  number- 
less instances  of  this  great  commercial  mis- 
take ;  but  I  should  only  weary  and  confuse 
you.  I  therefore  commend  also  this  head  of 
our  subject  to  your  own  meditation,  and  pro- 
ceed to  the  last  I  named— the  last  I  shall  task 
your  patience  with  to-night.  You  know  we 
are  now  considering  how  to  apply  our  genius  ; 
and  we  were  to  do  it  as  economists,  in  three 
ways  : — 

To  various  work  ; 
To  easy  work  ; 
To  lasting  work. 

36.  This  lasting  of  the  work,  then,  is  our 
final  question. 

Many  of  you  may  perhaps  remember  that 
Michael  Angelo  was  once  commanded  by 
Pietro  di  Medici  to  mould  a  statue  out  of 
snow,  and  that  he  obeyed  the  command.*  I 
am  glad,  and  we  have  all  reason  to  be  glad, 
that  such  a  fancy  ever  came  into  the  mind  of 

*  See  the  noble  passage  on  this  tradition  in  "  Casa  Guidi 
Windows." 


I.     DISCOVERY    AND    APPLICATION.  4I 

the  unworthy  prince,  and  for  this  cause  :  that 
Pietro  di  Medici  then  gave,  at  the  period  of 
one  great  epoch  of  consummate  power  in  the 
arts,  the  perfect,  accurate,  and  intensest  pos- 
sible type  of  the  greatest  error  which  nations 
and  princes  can  commit,  respecting  the  power 
of  genius  entrusted  to  their  guidance.  You 
had  there,  observe,  the  strongest  genius  in 
the  most  perfect  obedience  ;  capable  of  iron 
independence,  yet  wholly  submissive  to  the 
patron's  will ;  at  once  the  most  highly  accom- 
plished and  the  most  original,  capable  of  doing 
as  much  as  man  could  do,  in  any  direction 
that  man  could  ask.  And  its  governor,  and 
guide,  and  patron  sets  it  to  build  a  statue 
in  snow — to  put  itself  into  the  service  of 
annihilation — to  make  a  cloud  of  itself,  and 
pass  away  from  the  earth. 

37.  Now  this,  so  precisely  and  completely 
done  by  Pietro  di  Medici,  is  what  we  are  all 
doing,  exactly  in  the  degree  in  which  we  di- 
rect the  genius  under  our  patronage  to  work 
in  more  or  less  perishable  materials.  So 
far  as  we  induce  painters  to  work  in  fading 
colours,  or  architects  to  build  with  imperfect 
structure,   or  in  any  other    way  consult   only 


42  '    A    JOY    FOR    EVER. 

immediate  ease  and  cheapness  in  the  pro- 
duction of  what  we  want,  to  the  exclusion  of 
provident  thought  as  to  its  permanence  and 
serviceableness  in  after  ages;  so  far  we  are 
forcing  our  Michael  Angelos  to  carve  in  snow. 
The  first  duty  of  the  economist  in  art  is,  to  see 
that  no  intellect  shall  thus,  glitter  merely  in 
the  manner  of  hoar-frost ;  but  that  it  shall  be 
well  vitrified,  like  a  painted  window,  and  shall 
be  set  so  between  shafts  of  stone  and  bands 
of  iron,  that  it  shall  bear  the  sunshine  upon 
it,  and  send  the  sunshine  through  it,  from 
generation  to  generation. 

38.  I  can  conceive,  however,  some  political 
economist  to  interrupt  me  here,  and  say,  "  If 
you  make  your  art  wear  too  well,  you  will 
soon  have  too  much  of  it ;  you  will  throw 
your  artists  quite  out  of  work.  Better  allow 
for  a  little  wholesome  evanescence— beneficent 
destruction  :  let  each  age  provide  art  for  itself, 
or  we  shall  soon  have  so  many  good  pictures 
that  we  shall  not  know  what  to  do  with  them." 

Remember,  my  dear  hearers,  who  are  thus 
thinking,  that  political  economy,  like  every 
other  subject,  cannot  be  dealt  with  effectively 
if  we   try  to   solve   two  questions  at    a   time 


I.     DISCOVERY    AND    APPLICATION.  43 

instead  of  one.  It  is  one  question,  how  to  get 
plenty  of  a  thing  ;  and  another,  whether  plenty 
of  it  will  be  good  for  us.  Consider  these  two 
matters  separately  ;  ii3ver  confuse  yourself  by 
interweaving  one  with  the  other.  It  is  one 
question,  how  to  treat  your  fields  so  as  to  get 
a  good  harvest ;  another,  whether  you  wish  to 
have  a  good  harvest,  or  would  rather  like  to 
keep  up  the  price  of  corn.  It  is  one  question, 
how  to  graft  your  trees  so  as  to  grow  most 
apples  ;  and  quite  another,  whether  having  such 
a  heap  of  apples  in  the  storeroom  will  not 
make  them  all  rot. 

39.  Now,  therefore,  that  we  are  talking  only 
about  grafting  and  growing,  pray  do  not  vex 
yourselves  with  thinking  what  you  are  to  do 
with  the  pippins.  It  may  be  desirable  for  us  to 
have  much  art,  or  little — we  will  examine  that 
by-and-bye ;  but  just  now,  let  us  keep  to  the 
simple  consideration  how  to  get  plenty  of  good 
art  if  we  want  it.  Perhaps  it  might  be  just  as 
well  that  a  man  of  moderate  income  should  be 
able  to  possess  a  good  picture,  as  that  any 
work  of  real  merit  should  cost  500/.  or  1,000/.; 
at  all  events,  it  is  certainly  one  of  the  branches 
of  political   economy   to  ascertain   how,   if  we 


44  A   JOY    FOR    EVER. 

like,  we  can  get  things  in  quantities — plenty  of 
corn,  plenty  of  wine,  plenty  of  gold,  or  plenty 
of  pictures. 

It  has  just  been  said,  that  the  first  great 
secret  is  to  produce  work  that  will  last.  Now, 
the  conditions  of  work  lasting  are  twofold  :  it 
must  not  only  be  in  materials  that  will  last,  but 
it  must  be  itself  of  a  quality  that  will  last — it 
must  be  good  enough  to  bear  the  test  of  time. 
If  it  is  not  good,  we  shall  tire  of  it  quickly,  and 
throw  it  aside — we  shall  have  no  pleasure  in 
the  accumulation  of  it.  So  that  the  first  ques- 
tion of  a  good  art-economist  respecting  any 
work  is,  Will  it  lose  its  flavour  by  keeping  ? 
It  may  be  very  amusing  now,  and  look  much 
like  a  work  of  genius ;  but  what  will  be  its 
value  a  hundred  years  hence  ? 

You  cannot  always  ascertain  this.  You  may 
get  what  you  fancy  to  be  work  of  the  best 
quality,  and  yet  find  to  your  astonishment  that 
it  won't  keep.  But  of  one  thing  you  may  be 
sure,  that  art  which  is  produced  hastily  will 
also  perish  hastily ;  and  that  what  is  cheapest 
to  you  now,  is  likely  to  be  dearest  in  the  end. 

40.  I  am  sorry  to  say,  the  great  ten- 
dency of  this  age  is  to  expend  its  genius  in 


I.     DISCOVERY   AND    APPLICATION'.  45 

perishable  art  of  this  kind,  as  if  it  were  a 
triumph  to  burn  its  thoughts  away  in  bonfires. 
There  is  a  vast  quantity  of  intellect  and  of 
labour  consumed  annually  in  our  cheap  illus- 
trated publications  ;  }'ou  triumph  in  them  ;  and 
you  think  it  so  grand  a  thing  to  get  so  many 
woodcuts  for  a  penny.  Why,  woodcuts,  penny 
and  all,  are  as  much  lost  to  you  as  if  you  had 
invested  your  money  in  gossamer.  More  lost, 
for  the  gossamer  could  only  tickle  your  face, 
and  glitter  in  your  eyes  ;  it  could  not  catch 
your  feet  and  trip  you  up  :  but  the  bad  art 
can,  and  does  ;  for  you  can't  like  good  wood- 
cuts as  long  as  you  look  at  the  bad  ones.  If 
we  were  at  this  moment  to  come  across  a 
Titian  woodcut,  or  a  Durer  woodcut,  we  should 
not  like  it — those  of  us  at  least  who  are 
accustomed  to  the  cheap  work  of  the  day. 
We  don't  like,  and  can't  like,  that  long  ;  but 
when  we  are  tired  of  one  bad  cheap  thing, 
we  throw  it  aside  and  buy  another  bad  cheap 
thing ;  and  so  keep  looking  at  bad  things  all 
our  lives.  Now,  the  very  men  who  do  all 
that  quick  bad  work  for  us  are  capable  of 
doing  perfect  work.  Only,  perfect  work  can't 
be  hurried,    and    therefore   it    can't    be    cheap 


46  "a  joy  for  ever." 

beyond  a  certain  point.  But  suppose  you  pay 
twelve  times  as  much  as  you  do  now,  and 
you  have  one  woodcut  for  a  shilling  instead 
of  twelve  ;  and  the  one  woodcut  for  a  shilling 
is  as  good  as  art  can  be,  so  that  you  will -never 
tire  of  looking  at  it ;  and  is  struck  on  good 
paper  with  good  ink,  so  that  you  will  never 
wear  it  out  by  handling  it ;  while  you  are  sick 
of  your  penny-each  cuts  by  the  end  of  the 
week,  and  have  torn  them  mostly  in  half  too. 
Isn't  your  shilling's  worth  the  best  bargain  ? 
41.  It  is  not,  however,  only  in  getting  prints 
or  woodcuts  of  the  best  kind  that  you  will 
practise  economy.  There  is  a  certain  quality 
about  an  original  drawing  which  you  cannot 
get  in  a  woodcut,  and  the  best  part  of  the 
genius  of  many  men  is  only  expressible  in 
original  work,  whether  with  pen  or  ink — pencil 
or  colours.  This  is  not  always  the  case  ;  but 
in  general,  the  best  men  are  those  who  can 
only  express  themselves  on  paper  or  canvas  ; 
and  you  will  therefore,  in  the  long  run,  get 
most  for  your  money  by  buying  original  work  ; 
proceeding  on  the  principle  already  laid  down, 
that  the  best  is  likely  to  be  the  cheapest  in 
the  end.     Of  course,  original  work  cannot  be 


I.     DISCOVERY    AND    APPLICATION.  Afi 

produced  under  a  certain  cost.  If  you  want  a 
man  to  make  you  a  drawing  which  takes  him 
six  days,  you  must,  at  all  events,  keep  him  for 
six  days  in  bread  and  water,  fire  and  ledging; 
that  is  the  lowest  price  at  which  he  can  do  it 
for  you,  but  that  is  not  very  dear  :  and  the  best 
bargain  which  can  possibly  be  made  honestly 
in  art — the  very  ideal  of  a  cheap  purchase  to 
the  purchaser — is  the  original  work  01  a  great 
man  fed  for  as  many  days  as  are  necessary  on 
bread  and  water,  or  perhaps  we  may  say  with 
as  many  onions  as  will  keep  him  in  good 
humour.  That  is  the  way  by  which  you  will 
always  get  most  for  your  money  ;  no  mecha- 
nical multiplication  or  ingenuity  of  commercial 
arrangements  will  ever  get  you  a  better  penny's 
worth  of  art  than  that. 

42.  Without,  however,  pushing  our  calcula- 
tions quite  to  this  prison-discipline  extreme, 
we  may  lay  it  down  as  a  rule  in  art-economy, 
that  original  woik  is,  on  the  whole,  cheapest 
and  best  worth  having.  But  precisely  in  pro- 
portion to  the  value  of  it  as  a  production, 
becomes  the  importance  of  having  it  executed 
in  permanent  materials.  And  here  we  come  to 
note  the   second   main  error  of  the  day,   that 


48  "a  joy  for  ever." 

we  not  only  ask  our  workmen  for  bad  art, 
but  we  make  them  put  it  into  bad  substance. 
We  have,  for  example,  put  a  great  quantity 
of  genius,  within  the  last  twenty  years,  into 
water-colour  drawing,  and  we  have  done  this 
with  the  most  reckless  disregard  whether  either 
the  colours  or  the  paper  will  stand.  In  most 
instances,  neither  will.  By  accident,  it  may 
happen  that  the  colours  in  a  given  drawing 
have  been  of  good  quality,  and  its  paper  un- 
injured by  chemical  processes.  But  you  take 
not  the  least  care  to  ensure  these  being  so ;  I 
have  myself  seen  the  most  destructive  changes 
take  place  in  water-colour  drawings  within 
twenty  years  after  they  were  painted ;  and 
from  all  I  can  gather  respecting  the  reckless- 
ness of  modern  paper  manufacture,  my  belief 
is,  that  though  you  may  still  handle  an  Albert 
Durer  engraving,  two  hundred  years  old,  fear- 
lessly, not  one-half  of  that  time  will  have 
passed  over  your  modern  water-colours,  before 
most  of  them  will  be  reduced  to  mere  white  or 
brown  rags  ;  and  your  descendants,  twitching 
them  contemptuously  into  fragments  between 
finger  and  thumb,  will  mutter  ag^ainst  you,  half 
in  scorn  and  half  in  anger,    "  Those  wretched 


I.     DISCOVERY    AND    APPLICATION'.  49 

nineteenth  century  people  !  they  kept  vapour- 
ing and  fuming  about  the  world,  doing  what 
they  called  business,  and  they  couldn't  make 
a  sheet  of  paper  that  wasn't  rotten." 

43.  And  note  that  this  is  no  unimportant 
portion  of  your  art  economy  at  this  time. 
Your  water-colour  painters  are  becoming  every 
day  capable  of  expressing  greater  and  better 
things  ;  and  their  material  is  especially  adapted 
to  the  turn  of  your  best  artists'  minds.  The 
value  which  you  could  accumulate  in  work  of 
this  kind  would  soon  become  a  most  important 
item  in  the  national  art-wealth,  if  only  you 
would  take  the  little  pains  necessary  to  secure 
its  permanence.  I  am  inclined  to  think,  my- 
self, that  water-colour  ought  not  to  be  used  on 
paper  at  all,  but  only  on  vellum,  and  then, 
if  properly  taken  care  of,  the  drawing  would 
be  almost  imperishable.  Still,  paper  is  a  much 
more  convenient  material  for  rapid  work  ;  and 
it  is  an  infinite  absurdity  not  to  secure  the 
goodness  of  its  quality,  when  we  could  do 
so  without  the  slightest  trouble.  Among  the 
many  favouis  which  I  am  going  to  ask  from 
our  paternal  government,  when  we  get  it,  will 
be  that  it  will  supply  its  little  boys  with  good 

4 


50  "  A    JOY    FOR    EVER. 

paper.  You  have  nothing  to  do  but  to  let 
the  government  establish  a  paper  manufactory, 
under  the  superintendence  of  any  of  our  leading 
chemists,  who  should  be  answerable  for  the 
safety  and  completeness  of  all  the  processes 
of  the  manufacture.  The  government  stamp 
on  the  corner  of  your  sheet  of  drawing-paper, 
made  in  the  perfect  way,  should  cost  you  a 
shilling,  which  would  add  something  to  the 
revenue ;  and  when  you  bought  a  water-colour 
drawing  for  fifty  or  a  hundred  guineas,  you 
would  have  merely  to  look  in  the  corner  for 
your  stamp,  and  pay  your  extra  shilling  for  the 
security  that  your  hundred  guineas  were  given 
really  for  a  drawing,  and  not  for  a  coloured 
rag.  There  need  be  no  monopoly  or  restriction 
in  the  matter ;  let  the  paper  manufacturers 
compete  with  the  government,  and  i{  people 
liked  to  save  their  shilling,  and  take  their 
chance,  let  them  ;  only,  the  artist  and  purchaser 
might  then  be  sure  of  good  material,  if  they 
liked,  and  now  they  cannot  be. 

44.  I  should  like  also  to  have  a  government 
colour  manufactory ;  though  that  is  not  so 
necessary,  as  the  quality  of  colour  is  more 
within  the  artist's  power  of  testing,  and  I  have 


I.     DISCOVERY    AND    APPLICATION.  5  I 

no  doubt  that  any  painter  may  get  permanent 
colour  from  the  respectable  manufacturers,  if 
he  chooses.  1  will  not  attempt  to  follow  the 
subject  out  at  all  as  it  respects  architecture, 
and  our  methods  of  modern  building  ;  respect- 
ing which  I  have  had  occasion  to  speak  before 
now. 

45.  But  I  cannot  pass  without  some  brief 
notice  our  habit — continually,  as  it  seems  to 
me,  gaining  strength — of  putting  a  large  quan- 
tity of  thought  and  work,  annually,  into  things 
which  are  either  in  their  nature  necessarily 
perishable,  as  dress  ;  or  else  into  compliances 
with  the  fashion  of  the  day,  in  things  not  neces- 
sarily perishable,  as  plate.  I  am  afraid  almcst 
the  first  idea  of  a  young  rich  couple  setting 
up  house  in  London,  is,  that  they  must  have 
new  plate.  Their  father's  plate  may  be  very 
handsome,  but  the  fashion  is  changed.  They 
will  have  a  new  service  from  the  leading 
manufacturer,  and  the  old  plate,  except  a  few 
apostle  spoons,  and  a  cup  which  Charles  the 
Second  drank  a  health  in  to  their  pretty  an- 
cestress, is  sent  to  be  melted  down,  and  made 
up  with  new  flourishes  and  fresh  lustre.  Now, 
so  long  as  this  is  the  case — so  long,  observe, 


52  "a  joy  for  ever. 

as  fashion  has  influence  on  the  manufacture 
of  plate— so  long  you  cannot  have  a  goldsmith's 
art  in  this  country.  Do  you  suppose  any  work- 
man worthy  the  name  will  put  his  brains  into 
a  cup,  or  an  urn,  which  he  knows  is  to  go  to 
the  melting-pot  in  half  a  score  years  ?  He 
will  not ;  you  don't  ask  or  expect  it  of  him. 
You  ask  of  him  nothing  but  a  little  quick 
handicraft — a  clever  twist  of  a  handle  here, 
and  a  foot  there,  a  convolvulus  from  the  new- 
est school  of  design,  a  pheasant  from  Land- 
seer's  game  cards ;  a  couple  of  sentimental 
figures  for  supporters,  in  the  style  of  the  signs 
of  insurance  offices,  then  a  clever  touch  with 
the  burnisher,  and  there's  your  epergne,  the 
admiration  of  all  the  footmen  at  the  wedding- 
breakfast,  and  the  torment  of  some  unfortunate 
youth  who  cannot  see  the  pretty  girl  opposite 
to  him,  through  its  tyrannous  branches. 

46.  But  you  don't  suppose  that  that's  gold- 
smith's work  ?  Goldsmith's  work  is  made  to 
last,  and  made  with  the  men's  whole  heart 
and  soul  in  it ;  true  goldsmith's  work,  when 
it  exists,  is  generally  the  means  of  education 
of  the  greatest  painters  and  sculptors  of  the 
day.     Francia  was  a  goldsmith  ;  Francia  was 


I.       DISCOVERY    AND    APPLICATION.  53 

not  his  own  name,  but  that  of  his  master  the 
jeweller;  and  he  signed  his  pictures  almost 
always,  "  Francia,  the  goldsmith,"  for  love  of 
his  master ;  Ghirlandajo  was  a  goldsmith,  and 
was  the  master  of  Michael  Angelo  ;  Verrocchio 
was  a  goldsmith,  and  was  the  master  of  Leo- 
nardo da  Vinci.  Ghiberti  was  a  goldsmith, 
and  beat  out  the  bronze  gates  which  Michael 
Angelo  said  might  serve  for  gates  gf  Para- 
dise.* But  if  ever  you  want  work  like  theirs 
again,  you  must  keep  it,  though  it  should  have 
the  misfortune  to  become  old-fashioned.  You 
must  not  break  it  up,  nor  melt  it  any  more. 
There  is  no  economy  in  that ;  you  could  not 
easily  waste  intellect  more  grievously.  Nature 
may  melt  her  goldsmith's  work  at  every  sun- 
set if  she  chooses  ;  and  beat  it  out  into  chased 
bars    again  at    every   sunrise ;    but    you    must 

*  Several  reasons  may  account  for  the  fact  that  goldsmith's 
work  is  so  wholesome  for  young  artists  :  first,  that  it  gives 
great  firmness  of  hand  to  deal  for  some  time  with  a  solid 
substance  ;  again,  that  it  induces  caution  and  steadiness — a  boy 
trusted  with  cha'k  and  paper  suffers  an  immediate  temp- 
tation to  scrawl  upon  it  and  play  with  it,  but  lie  dares  not 
scrawl  on  gold,  and  he  cmnot  play  with  it  ;  and,  lastly,  that 
it  gives  great  delicacy  and  precision  of  touch  to  work  upon 
minute  forms,  and  to  aim  at  producing  richness  and  finish  of 
design  correspondent  to  the  preciousness  of  the  material. 


54  "a  joy  for  ever." 

not.  The  way  to  have  a  truly  noble  service 
of  plate,  is  to  keep  adding  to  it,  not  melting 
it.  At  every  marriage,  and  at  every  birth, 
get  a  new  piece  of  gold  or  silver  if  you  will, 
but  with  noble  workmanship  on  it,  done  for 
all  time,  and  put  it  among  your  treasures ; 
that  is  one  of  the  chief  things  which  gold  was 
made  for,  and  made  incorruptible  for.  When 
we  know^  a  little  more  of  political  economy, 
we  shall  find  that  none  but  partially  savage 
nations  need,  imperatively,  gold  for  their  cur- 
rency ;  *  but  gold  has  been  given  us,  among 
other  things,  that  we  might  put  beautiful  work 
into  its  imperishable  splendour,  and  that  the 
artists  v/ho  have  the  most  wilful  fancies  may 
have  a  material  which  will  drag  out,  and  beat 
out,  as  their  dreams  require,  and  will  hold  it- 
self together  with  fantastic  tenacity,  whatever 
rare  and  delicate  service  they  set  it  upon. 

47.  So  here  is  one  branch  of  decorative  art 
in  which  rich  people  may  indulge  themselves 
unselfishly  ;  if  they  ask  for  gcod  art  in  it,  they 
may  be  sure  in  buying  gold  and  silver  plate 
that  they  are  enforcing  useful  education  on 
young  artists.  But  there  is  another  branch  of 
*  See  note  in  Addenda  on  the  nature  of  property. 


I.       DISCOVERY    AND    APPLICATION.  55 

decorative  art  in  which  I  am  sorry  to  say  we 
cannot,  at  least  under  existing  circumstances, 
indulge  ourselves,  with  the  hope  of  doing  good 
to  anybody :  I  mean  the  great  and  subtle  art 
of  dress. 

48.  And  here  I  must  interrupt  the  pursuit 
of  our  subject  for  a  moment  or  two,  in  order 
to  state  one  of  the  principles  of  political  eco- 
nomy, which,  though  it  is,  I  believe,  now  suffi- 
ciently understood  and  asserted  by  the  leading 
masters  of  the  science,  is  not  yet,  I  grieve  to 
say,  acted  upon  by  the  plurality  of  those  who 
have  the  management  of  riches.  Whenever 
we  spend  money,  we  of  course  set  people 
to  work  :  that  is  the  meaning  of  spending 
money  ;  we  may,  indeed,  lose  it  without  em- 
ploying anybody  ;  but,  whenever  we  spend  it, 
we  set  a  number  of  people  to  work,  greater 
or  less,  of  course,  according  to  the  rate  of 
wages,  bat,  in  the  long  run,  proportioned  to  the 
sum  we  spend.  Well,  your  shallow  people, 
because  they  see  that  however  they  spend 
money  they  are  always  employing  some- 
body, and,  therefore,  doing  some  good,  think 
and  say  to  themselves,  that  it  is  all  one  how 
they  spend  it — that  all  their  apparently  selfish 


56  "a  joy  for  ever." 

luxury  is,  in  reality,  unselfish,  and  is  doing 
just  as  much  good  as  if  they  gave  all  their 
money  away,  or  perhaps  more  good ;  and  I 
have  heard  foolish  people  even  declare  it  as 
a  principle  of  political  economy,  that  who- 
ever invented  a  new  want  *  conferred  a  good 
on  the  community.  I  have  not  words  strong 
enough — at  least,  I  could  not,  without  shock- 
ing you,  use  the  words  which  would  be  strong 
enough — to  express  my  estimate  of  the  absur- 
dity and  the  mischievousness  of  this  popular 
fallacy.  So,  putting  a  great  restraint  upon  my- 
self, and  using  no  hard  words,  I  will  simply 
try  to  state  the  nature  of  it,  and  the  extent  of 
its  influence. 

49.  Granted,  that  whenever  we  spend  money 
for  whatever  purpose,  we  set  people  to  work  ; 
and  passing  by,  for  the  moment,  the  question 
whether  the  work  we  set  them  to  is  all  equally 
healthy  and  good  for  them,  we  will  assume 
that  whenever  we  spend  a  guinea  we  provide 
an  equal  number  of  people  with  healthy  main- 
tenance for  a  given  time.  But,  by  the  way 
in  which  we  spend  it,  we  entirely  direct  the 
labour  of  those  people  during  that  given  time. 
*  See  note  5th,  in  Addenda. 


I.       DISCOVERY    AND    APPLICATION.  57 

We  become  their  masters  or  mistresses,  and 
we  compel  them  to  produce,  within  a  certain 
period,  a  certain  article.  Now,  that  article  may 
be  a  useful  and  lasting  one,  or  it  may  be  a 
useless  and  perishable  one — it  may  be  one 
useful  to  the  whole  community,  or  useful  only 
to  ourselves.  And  our  selfishness  and  folly, 
or  our  virtue  and  prudence,  are  shown,  not 
by  our  spending  money,  but  by  cur  spend- 
ing it  for  the  wrong  or  the  right  thing  ;  and 
we  are  wise  and  kind,  not  in  maintaining  a 
certain  number  of  people  for  a  given  period, 
but  only  in  requiring  them  to  produce  during 
that  period,  the  kind  of  things  which  shall 
be  useful  to  society,  instead  of  those  which  are 
only  useful  to  ourselves. 

50.  Thus,  for  instance  :  if  you  are  a  young 
lady,  and  employ  a  certain  number  of  semp- 
stresses for  a  given  time,  in  making  a  given 
number  of  simple  and  serviceable  dresses — 
suppose,  seven  ;  of  which  you  can  wear  one 
yourself  for  half  the  winter,  and  give  six  away 
to  poor  girls  who  have  none,  you  are  spending 
your  money  unselfishly.  But  if  you  employ 
the  same  number  of  sempstresses  for  the  same 
number  of  days,  in  making  four,  or  five,  or  six 


58  "a  joy  for  ever." 

beautiful  flounces  for  your  own  ball-dress — 
flounces  which  will  clothe  no  one  but  yourself, 
and  which  you  will  yourself  be  unable  to  wear 
at  more  than  one  ball — you  are  employing  your 
money  selfishly.  You  have  maintained,  indeed, 
in  each  case,  the  same  number  of  people  ;  but 
in  the  one  case  you  have  directed  their  labour 
to  the  service  of  the  community  ,  in  the  other 
case  you  have  consumed  it  wholly  upon  your- 
self. I  don't  say  you  are  never  to  do  so  ;  I 
don't  say  you  ought  not  sometimes  to  think 
of  yourselves  only,  and  to  make  yourselves  as 
pretty  as  you  can ;  only  do  not  confuse  coquet- 
tishness  with  benevolence,  nor  cheat  your- 
selves into  thinking  that  all  the  finery  you  can 
wear  is  so  much  put  into  the  hungry  mouths 
of  those  beneath  you  :  it  is  not  so ,  it  is  what 
you  yourselves,  whether  you  will  or  no,  must 
sometimes  instinctively  feel  it  to  be — it  is 
what  those  who  stand  shivering  in  the  streets, 
forming  a  line  to  watch  you  as  you  step  out 
of  your  carriages,  know  it  to  be ;  those  fine 
dresses  do  not  mean  that  so  much  has  been 
put  into  their  mouths,  but  that  so  much  has 
been   taken  out  of  their  mouths. 

5 1 .   The  real  politico-economical  signification 


I.      DISCOVERY    AND    APPLICATION.  59 

of  every  one  of  those  beautiful  toilettes,  is  just 
this  :  that  you  have  had  a  certain  number  of 
people  put  for  a  certain  number  of  days  wholly 
under  your  authority,  by  the  sternest  of  slave- 
masters — hunger  and  cold  ;  and  you  have  said 
to  them,  "  I  will  feed  you,  indeed,  and  clcthe 
you,  and  give  you  fuel  for  so  many  days  ;  but 
during  those  days  you  shall  work  for  me  only  : 
your  little  brothers  need  clothes,  but  you  shall 
make  none  for  them  :  your  sick  friend  needs 
clothes,  but  you  shall  make  none  for  her  :  you 
yourself  will  soon  need  another  and  a  warmer 
dress,  but  you  shall  make  none  ior  yourself, 
You  shall  make  nothing  but  lace  and  roses  for 
me ;  for  this  fortnight  to  come,  you  shall  work 
at  the  patterns  and  petals,  and  then  I  will 
crush  and  consume  them  away  in  an  hour." 
You  will  perhaps  answer — "  It  may  not  be  par- 
ticularly benevolent  to  do  this,  and  we  won't 
call  it  so ;  but  at  any  rate  we  do  no  wrong  in 
taking  their  labour  when  we  pay  them  their 
wages  :  if  we  pay  for  their  work,  we  have  a 
right  to  it." 

52.  No; — a  thousand  times  no.  The  labour 
which  you  have  paid  for,  does  indeed  become, 
by  the  act  of  purchase,  your  own  labour:  }'ou 


60  "  A   JOY    FOR    EVER." 

have  bought  the  hands  and  the  time  of  those 
workers ;    they  are,  by  right  and  justice,  your 
own  hands,  your    own    time.      But    have  you 
a  right  to  spend  your  own  time,  to  work  with 
your  own  hands,  only  for  your  own  advantage  ? 
— much    more,  when,  by  purchase,  you    have 
invested  your   own  person  with    the   strength 
of  others  ;  and  added  to  your  own  life,  a  part 
of  the   life  of  others?     You    may,  indeed,  to 
a   certain    extent,    use    their    labour    for    your 
delight :    remember,   I  am    making  no    general 
assertions  against  splendour  of  dress,  or  pomp 
of  accessories  of   life  ;    on  the  contrary,   there 
are  many  reasons  for  thinking  that  we  do  not 
at  present  attach  enough  importance  to  beauti- 
ful dress,  as  one  of  the  means  of  influencing 
general    taste    and   character.     But    I  do    say, 
that  you  must  weigh  the  value   of   what   you 
ask  these  workers  to  produce  for  you   in  its 
own  distinct  balance ;  that  on  its  own  worthi- 
ness   or    desirableness    rests  the    question    of 
your  kindness,  and  not  merely  on  the  fact  of 
your  having  employed  people  in  producing  it  : 
and   I  say  further,  that    as  long  as   there  are 
cold  and  nakedness  in  the  land  around  you,  so 
long  there  can  be  no  question  at  all  but   that 


I.     DISCOVERY    AND    APPLICATION.  6 1 

splendour  of  dress  is  a  crime.  In  due  time, 
when  we  have  nothing  better  to  set  people  to 
work  at,  it  may  be  right  to  let  them  make  lace 
and  cut  jewels  ;  but  as  long  as  there  are  any 
who  have  no  blankets  for  their  beds,  and  no 
rags  for  their  bodies,  so  long  it  is  blanket- 
making  and  tailoring  we  must  set  people  to 
work  at — not  lace. 

53.  And  it  would  be  strange,  if  at  any  great 
assembly  which,  while  it  dazzled  the  young 
and  the  thoughtless,  beguiled  the  gentler  hearts 
that  beat  beneath  the  embroidery,  with  a  placid 
sensation  of  luxurious  benevolence — as  if  by 
all  that  they  wore  in  waywardness  of  beauty, 
comfort  had  been  first  given  to  the  distressed, 
and  aid  to  the  indigent ;  it  would  be  strange, 
I  say,  if,  for  a  moment,  the  spirits  of  Truth 
and  of  Terror,  which  walk  invisibly  among  the 
masques  of  the  earth,  would  lift  the  dimness 
from  our  erring  thoughts,  and  show  us  how 
— inasmuch  as  the  sums  exhausted  for  that 
magnificence  would  have  given  back  the  fail- 
ing breath  to  many  an  unsheltered  outcast 
on  moor  and  street — they  who  wear  it  have 
literally  entered  into  partnership  with  Death  ; 
and  dressed  themselves  in   his  spoils.     Yes,  if 


62  "a  joy  for  ever." 

the  veil  could  be  lifted  not  only  from  your 
thoughts,  but  from  your  human  sight,  you 
would  see — the  angels  do  see — on  those  gay 
white  dresses  of  yours,  strange  dark  spots, 
and  crimson  patterns  that  you  knew  not  of — 
spots  of  the  inextinguishable  red  that  all  the 
seas  cannot  wash  away  ;  yes,  and  among  the 
pleasant  flowers  that  crown  your  fair  heads, 
and  glow  on  your  wreathed  hair,  you  would  see 
that  one  weed  was  always  twisted  which  no  one 
thought  of — the  grass  that  grows  on  graves. 

54.  It  was  not,  however,  this  last,  this 
clearest  and  most  appalling  view  of  our  subject, 
that  I  intended  to  ask  you  to  take  this  even- 
ing ;  only  it  is  impossible  to  set  any  part  of 
the  matter  in  its  true  light,  until  we  go  to 
the  root  of  it.  But  the  point  which  it  is  our 
special  business  to  consider  is,  not  whether 
costliness  of  dress  is  contrary  to  charity  ;  but 
whether  it  is  not  contrary  to  mere  worldly 
wisdom :  whether,  even  supposing  we  knew 
that  splendour  of  dress  did  not  cost  suffering 
or  hunger,  we  might  not  put  the  splendour 
better  in  other  things  than  dress.  And,  sup- 
posing our  mode  of  dress  were  really  grace- 
ful or  beautiful,  this  might  be  a  very  doubtful 


I.     DISCOVERY    AND    APPLICATION.  63 

question ;  for  I  believe  true  nobleness  cf 
dress  to  be  an  important  means  of  education, 
as  it  certainly  is  a  necessity  to  any  nation 
which  wishes  to  possess  living  art,  concerned 
with  portraiture  of  human  nature.  No  good 
historical  painting  ever  yet  existed,  or  ever 
can  exist,  where  the  dresses  of  the  people 
of  the  time  are  not  beautiful :  and  had  it 
not  been  for  the  lovely  and  fantastic  dressing 
of  the  thirteenth  to  the  sixteenth  centuries, 
neither  French,  nor  Florentine,  nor  Venetian 
art  could  have  risen  to  anything  like  the  rank 
it  reached.  Still,  even  then,  the  best  dress- 
ing was  never  the  costliest ;  and  its  effect  de- 
pended much  more  on  its  beautiful  and,  in 
early  times,  modest,  arrangement,  and  en  the 
simple  and  lovely  masses  of  its  colour,  than 
on  gorgeousness  of  clasp  or  embroidery. 

55.  Whether  we  can  ever  return  to  any  of 
those  more  perfect  types  of  form,  is  question- 
able ;  but  there  can  be  no  more  question  that 
all  the  money  we  spend  on  the  forms  of 
dress  at  present  worn,  is,  so  far  as  any  gocd 
purpose  is  concerned,  wholly  lost.  Mind,  in 
saying  this,  I  reckon  among  good  purposes 
the    purpose    which    young    ladies    are    said 


64  "  A   JOY    FOR    EVER." 

sometimes  to  entertain— of  being  married  ;  but 
they  would  be  married  quite  as  soon  (and 
probably  to  wiser  and  better  husbands)  by 
dressing  quietly,  as  by  dressing  brilliantly :  and  I 
believe  it  would  only  be  needed  to  lay  fairly  and 
largely  before  them  the  real  good  which  might 
be  effected  by  the  sums  they  spend  in  toilettes, 
to  make  them  trust  at  once  only  to  their  bright 
eyes  and  braided  hair  for  all  the  mischief  they 
have  a  mind  to.  I  wish  we  could,  for  once, 
get  the  statistics  of  a  London  season.  There 
was  much  complaining  talk  in  Parliament,  last 
week,  of  the  vast  sum  the  nation  has  given 
for  the  best  Paul  Veronese  in  Venice-- 14,000/.  : 
I  wonder  what  the  nation  meanwhile  has 
given  for  its  ball-dresses  !  Suppose  we  could 
see  the  London  milliners'  bills,  simply  for  un- 
necessary breadths  of  slip  and  flounce,  from 
April  to  July ;  I  wonder  whether  14,000/. 
would  cover  them.  But  the  breadths  of  slip 
and  flounce  are  by  this  time  as  much  lost  and 
vanished  as  last  year's  snow  ;  only  they  have 
done  less  good  :  but  the  Paul  Veronese  will  last 
for  centuries,  if  we  take  care  of  it ;  and  yet, 
we  grumble  at  the  price  given  for  the  painting, 
while  no  one  grumbles  at  the  price  of  pride. 


I.     DISCOVERY    AND    APPLICATION.  6$ 

56.  Time  does  not  permit  me  to  go  into  any 
farther  illustration  of  the  various  modes  in 
which  we  build  our  statue  out  of  snow,  and 
waste  our  labour  on  things  that  vanish.  I 
must  leave  you  to  follow  out  the  subject  for 
yourselves,  as  I  said  I  should,  and  proceed,  in 
our  next  lecture,  to  examine  the  two  other 
branches  of  our  subject — namely,  how  to  accu- 
mulate our  art,  and  how  to  distribute  it.  But, 
in  closing,  as  we  have  been  much  on  the 
topic  of  good  government,  both  of  ourselves 
and  others,  let  me  just  give  you  one  more 
illustration  of  what  it  means,  from  that  old  art 
of  which,  next  evening,  I  shall  try  to  convince 
you  that  the  value,  both  moral  and  mercantile, 
is  greater  than  we  usually  suppose. 

57.  One  of  the  frescoes  by  Ambrozio  Loren- 
zetti,  in  the  town-hall  of  Siena,  represents,  by 
means  of  symbolical  figures,  the  principles  of 
Good  Civic  Government  and  of  Good  Govern- 
ment in  general.  The  figure  representing  this 
noble  Civic  Government  is  enthroned,  and  sur- 
rounded by  figures  representing  the  Virtues, 
variously  supporting  or  administering  its  autho- 
rity. Now,  observe  what  work  is  given  to  each 
of  these  virtues.     Three  winged  ones — Faith, 


66  "a  joy  for  ever." 

Hope,  and  Charity — surround  the  head  of  the 
figure ;  not  in  mere  compliance  with  the  com- 
mon and  heraldic  laws  of  precedence  among 
Virtues,  such  as  we  moderns  observe  habitu- 
ally, but  with  peculiar  purpose  on  the  part  of 
the  painter.  Faith,  as  thus  represented  ruling 
the  thoughts  of  the  Good  Governor,  does  not 
mean  merely  religious  faith,  understood  in  those 
times  to  be  necessary  to  all  persons — governed 
no  less  than  governors — but  it  means  the  faith 
which  enables  work  to  be  carried  out  steadily, 
in  spite  of  adverse  appearances  and  expedien- 
cies ;  the  faith  in  great  principles,  by  which  a 
civic  ruler  looks  past  all  the  immediate  checks 
and  shadows  that  would  daunt  a  common  man, 
knowing  that  what  is  rightly  done  will  have 
a  right  issue,  and  holding  his  way  in  spite  of 
pullings  at  his  cloak  and  whisperings  in  his 
ear,  enduring,  as  having  in  him  a  faith  which 
is  evidence  of  things  unseen. 

58.  And  Hope,  in  like  manner,  is  here  not 
the  heavenward  hope  which  ought  to  animate 
the  hearts  of  all  men  ;  but  she  attends  upon 
Good  Government,  to  show  that  all  such  gov- 
ernment is  expectant  as  well  as  conservative ; 
that  if  it  ceases  to  be  hopeful  of  better  things, 


I.     DISCOVERY    AND    APPLICATION.  6j 

it  ceases  to  be  a  wise  guardian  of  present 
things  :  that  it  ought  never,  as  long  as  the 
world  lasts,  to  be  wholly  content  with  any 
existing  state  of  institution  or  possession,  but 
to  be  hopeful  still  of  more  wisdom  and  power ; 
not  clutching  at  it  restlessly  or  hastily,  but  feel- 
ing that  its  real  life  consists  in  steady  ascent 
from  high  to  higher :  conservative,  indeed,  and 
jealously  conservative  of  old  things,  but  con- 
servative of  them  as  pillars,  not  as  pinnacles — 
as  aids,  but  not  as  idols  ;  and  hopeful  chiefly, 
and  active,  in  times  of  national  trial  or  distress, 
according  to  those  first  and  notable  words 
describing  the  queenly  nation :  "  She  riseth, 
while  it  is  yet  night." 

59.  And  again,  the  winged  Charity  which  is 
attendant  on  Good  Government  has,  in  this 
fresco,  a  peculiar  office.  Can  you  guess  what  ? 
If  you  consider  the  character  of  contest  which 
so  often  takes  place  among  kings  for  their 
crowns,  and  the  selfish  and  tyrannous  means 
they  commonly  take  to  aggrandize  or  secure 
their  power,  you  will,  perhaps,  be  surprised  to 
hear  that  the  office  of  Charity  is  to  crown  the 
King.  And  yet,  if  you  think  of  it  a  little, 
you  will  see  the  beauty  of  the  thought  wl 


68  "  A   JOY    FOR    EVER." 

sets  her  in  this  function  :  since,  in  the  first 
place,  all  the  authority  of  a  good  governor 
should  be  desired  by  him  only  for  the  good 
of  his  people,  so  that  it  is  only  Love  that 
makes  him  accept  or  guard  his  crown  :  in  the 
second  place,  his  chief  greatness  consists  in 
the  exercise  of  this  love,  and  he  is  truly  to  be 
revered  only  so  far  as  his  acts  and  thoughts 
are  those  of  kindness ;  so  that  Love  is  the 
light  of  his  crown,  as  well  as  the  giver  of  it : 
lastly,  because  his  strength  depends  on  the 
affections  of  his  people,  and  it  is  only  their  love 
which  can  securely  crown  him,  and  for  ever. 
So  that  Love  is  the  strength  of  his  crown  as 
well  as  the  light  of  it. 

60.  Then,  surrounding  the  King,  or  in 
various  obedience  to  him,  appear  the  depen- 
dent virtues,  as  Fortitude,  Temperance,  Truth, 
and  other  attendant  spirits,  of  all  which  I 
cannot  now  give  account,  wishing  you  only 
to  notice  the  one  to  whom  are  entrusted  the 
guidance  and  administration  of  the  public 
revenues.  Can  you  guess  which  it  is  likely  to 
be  ?  Charity,  you  would  have  thought,  should 
have  something  to  do  with  the  business ;  but 
not  so,  for  she  is  too  hot  to  attend  carefully 


I.     DISCOVERY    AND    APPLICATION.  69 

to  it.  Prudence,  perhaps,  you  think  of  in  the 
next  place.  No,  she  is  too  timid,  and  loses 
opportunities  in  making  up  her  mind.  Can 
it  be  Liberality  then  ?  No  :  Liberality  is  en- 
trusted with  some  small  sums;  but  she  is  a 
bad  accountant,  and  is  allowed  no  important 
place  in  the  exchequer.  But  the  treasures  are 
given  in  charge  to  a  virtue  of  which  we  hear 
too  little  in  modern  times,  as  distinct  from 
others;  Magnanimity:  largeness  of  heart :  not 
softness  or  weakness  of  heart,  mind  you — but 
capacity  of  heart — the  great  measuring  virtue, 
which  weighs  in  heavenly  balances  all  that 
may  be  given,  and  all  that  may  be  gained  ;  and 
sees  how  to  do  noblest  things  in  noblest  ways  : 
which  of  two  goods  comprehends  and  therefore 
chooses  the  greater :  which  of  two  personal 
sacrifices  dares  and  accepts  the  larger:  which, 
out  of  the  avenues  of  beneficence,  treads  always 
that  which  opens  farthest  into  the  blue  fields 
of  futurity  :  that  character,  in  fine,  which,  in 
those  words  taken  by  us  at  first  for  the  descrip- 
tion of  a  Queen  among  the  nations,  looks  k  -  s 
to  the  present  power  than  to  the  distant  pro- 
mise ;  "Strength  and  honour  are  in  her  cloth- 
ing,— and  she  shall  rejoice  in  time  to  come." 


LECTURE    II. 

THE    ACCUMULATION    AND    DISTRIBUTION    OF    ART. 

Continuation  of  the  previous  Lecture;  delivered 
July  13,   1857. 

61.  The  heads  of  our  subject  which  remain  for 
our  consideration  this  evening  are,  you  will 
remember,  the  accumulation  and  the  distribu- 
tion of  works  of  art.  Our  complete  inquiry 
fell  into  four  divisions — first,  how  to  get  our 
genius  ;  then,  how  to  apply  our  genius ;  then, 
how  to  accumulate  its  results  ;  and  lastly,  how 
to  distribute  them.  We  considered,  last  even- 
ing, how  to  discover  and  apply  it ; — we  have 
to-night  to  examine  the  modes  of  its  preserva- 
tion and  distribution. 

62.  III.  Accumulation. — And  now,  in  the 
outset,  it  will  be  well  to  face  that  objection 
which  we  put  aside  a  little  while  ago ;  namely, 
that  perhaps  it    is    not  well    to    have   a  great 


II.     ACCUMULATION    AND    DISTRIBUTION.        jl 

deal  of  good  art;  and  that  it  should  not  be 
made  too  cheap. 

"  Nay,"  I  can  imagine  some  of  the  more 
generous  among  you  exclaiming,  "  we  will 
not  trouble  you  to  disprove  that  objection ;  of 
course  it  is  a  selfish  and  base  one :  good  art,  as 
well  as  other  good  things,  ought  to  be  made 
as  cheap  as  possible,  and  put  as  far  as  we  can 
within  the  reach  of  everybody." 

6$.  Pardon  me,  I  am  not  prepared  to  admit 
that.  I  rather  side  with  the  selfish  objectors, 
and  believe  that  art  ought  not  to  be  made 
cheap,  beyond  a  certain  point  ;  for  the  amount 
of  pleasure  that  you  can  receive  from  any 
great  work,  depends  wholly  on  the  quantity  of 
attention  and  energy  of  mind  you  can  bring 
to  bear  upon  it.  Now,  that  attention  and 
energy  depend  much  more  on  the  freshness 
of  the  thing  than  you  would  at  all  suppose ; 
unless  you  very  carefully  studied  the  move- 
ments of  your  own  minds.  If  you  see  things 
of  the  same  kind  and  of  equal  value  very  fre- 
quently, your  reverence  for  them  is  infallibly 
diminished,  your  powers  of  attention  get  gra- 
dually wearied,  and  your  interest  and  enthu- 
siasm worn  out ;  and  you  cannot  in  that  state 


72  "  A    JOY    FOR    EVER." 

bring  to  any  given  work  the  energy  neces- 
sary to  enjoy  it.  If,  indeed,  the  question  were 
only  between  enjoying  a  great  many  pictures 
each  a  little,  or  one  picture  very  much,  the  sum 
of  enjoyment  being  in  each  case  the  same,  you 
might  rationally  desire  to  possess  rather  the 
larger  quantity  than  the  small  ;  both  because 
cne  work  of  art  always  in  some  sort  illustrates 
another,  and  because  quantity  diminishes  the 
chances  of  destruction. 

64.  But  the  question  is  not  a  merely  arith- 
metical one  of  this  kind.  Your  fragments  of 
broken  admirations  will  not,  when  they  are 
put  together,  make  up  one  whole  admiration  ; 
two  and  two,  in  this  case,  do  not  make  four, 
nor  anything  like  four.  Your  good  picture, 
or  book,  or  work  of  art  of  any  kind,-  is  always 
in  some  degree  fenced  and  closed  about  with 
difficulty.  You  may  think  of  it  as  of  a  kind 
of  cocoanut,  with  very  often  rather  an  un- 
seemly shell,  but  good  milk  and  kernel  inside. 
Now,  if  you  possess  twenty  cocoanuts,  and 
being  thirsty,  go  impatiently  from  one  to  the 
other,  giving  only  a  single  scratch  with  the 
point  of  your  knife  to  the  shell  of  each,  you 
will  get   no  milk    from   all   the    twenty.      But 


II.     ACCUMULATION    AND    DISTRIBUTION.         73 

if  you  leave  nineteen  of  them  alone,  and  give 
twenty  cuts  to  the  shell  of  one,  you  will  get 
through  it,  and  at  the  milk  of  it.  And  the 
tendency  of  the  human  mind  is  always  to  get 
tired  before  it  has  made  its  twenty  cuts  ;  and 
to  try  another  nut  :  and  moreover,  even  if  it 
has  perseverance  enough  to  crack  its  nuts,  it 
is  sure  to  try  to  eat  too  many,  and  to  choke 
itself.  Hence,  it  is  wisely  appcinted  for  us 
that  few  of  the  things  we  desire  can  be  had 
without  considerable  labour,  and  at  consider- 
able intervals  of  time.  We  cannot  generally 
get  our  dinner  without  working  for  it,  and 
that  gives  us  appetite  for  it  ;  we  cannot  get 
our  holiday  without  waiting  for  it,  and  that 
gives  us  zest  for  it  ;  and  we  ought  not  to  get 
our  picture  without  paying  for  it,  and  that 
gives  us  a  mind  to  look  at  it. 

65.  Nay,  I  will  even  go  so  far  as  to  say 
that  we  ought  not  to  get  books  too  cheaply. 
No  book,  I  believe,  is  ever  worth  half  so  much 
to  its  reader  as  one  that  has  been  coveted 
for  a  year  at  a  bookstall,  and  bought  out  of 
saved  halfpence  ;  and  perhaps  a  day  or  two's 
fasting.  That's  the  way  to  get  at  the  cream 
of  a    book.     And  I  should    say  more  on  this 


74  "a  joy  for  ever. 

matter,  and  protest  as  energetically  as  I  could 
against  the  plague  of  cheap  literature,  with 
which  we  are  just  now  afflicted,  but  that  I 
fear  your  calling  me  to  order,  as  being  un- 
practical, because  I  don't  quite  see  my  way 
at  present  to  making  everybody  fast  for  their 
books.  But  one  may  see  that  a  thing  is  desir- 
able and  possible,  even  though  one  may  not 
at  once  know  the  best  way  to  it, — and  in  my 
island  of  Barataria,  when  I  get  it  well  into 
order,  I  assure  you  no  book  shall  be  sold  for 
less  than  a  pound  sterling  ;  if  it  can  be  pub- 
lished cheaper  than  that,  the  surplus  shall  all 
go  into  my  treasury,  and  save  my  subjects 
taxation  in  other  directions ;  only  people  really 
poor,  who  cannot  pay  the  pound,  shall  be 
supplied  with  the  books  they  want  for  nothing, 
in  a  certain  limited  quantity.  I  haven't  made 
up  my  mind  about  the  number  yet,  and  there 
are  several  other  points  in  the  system  yet 
unsettled  ;  when  they  are  all  determined,  if 
you  will  allow  me,  I  will  come  and  give  you 
another  lecture,  on  the  political  economy  of 
literature.* 

66.  Meantime,  returning    to    our    immediate 
*  See  note  6th.  in  Addenda. 


II.     ACCUMULATION    AND    DISTRIBUTION.       75 

subject,  I  say  to  my  generous  hearers,  who 
want  to  shower  Titians  and  Turners  upon 
us,  like  falling  leaves,  "  Pictures  ought  not  to 
be  too  cheap  ; "  but  in  much  stronger  tone  I 
would  say  to  those  who  want  to  keep  up  the 
prices  of  pictorial  property,  that  pictures  ought 
not  to  be  too  dear — that  is  to  say,  not  as  dear 
as  they  are.  For,  as  matters  at  present  stand, 
it  is  wholly  impossible  for  any  man  in  the 
ordinary  circumstances  of  English  life  to  pos- 
sess himself  of  a  piece  of  great  art.  A  modern 
drawing  of  average  merit,  or  a  first-class  en- 
graving, may,  perhaps,  not  without  some  self- 
reproach,  be  purchased  out  of  his  savings  by 
a  man  of  narrow  income  ;  but  a  satisfactory 
example  of  first-rate  art — masterhands'  work 
— is  wholly  out  of  his  reach.  And  we  are  so 
accustomed  to  look  upon  this  as  the  natural 
course  and  necessity  of  things,  that  we  never 
set  ourselves  in  any  wise  to  diminish  the  evil ; 
and  yet  it  is  an  evil  perfectly  capable  of  dimi- 
nution. 

67.  It  is  an  evil  precisely  similar  in  kind 
to  that  which  existed  in  the  Middle  Ages, 
respecting  good  books,  and  which  everybody 
then,  I   suppose,  thought  as  natural  as  we  do 


y6  "  A    JOY    FOR    EVER." 

now  our  small  supply  of  good  pictures.  You 
could  not  then  study  the  work  of  a  great  his- 
torian, or  great  poet,  any  more  than  you  can 
now  study  that  of  a  great  painter,  but  at  heavy 
cost.  If  you  wanted  a  book,  you  had  to  get 
it  written  out  for  you,  or  to  write  it  out  for 
yourself.  But  printing  came,  and  the  poor 
man  may  read  his  Dante  and  his  Homer  ;  and 
Dante  and  Homer  are  none  the  worse  for  that. 
But  it  is  only  in  literature  that  private  persons 
of  moderate  fortune  can  possess  and  study 
greatness  :  they  can  study  at  home  no  great- 
ness in  art ;  and  the  object  of  that  accumula- 
tion which  we  are  at  present  aiming  at,  as  our 
third  object  in  political  economy,  is  to  bring 
great  art  in  some  degree  within  the  reach  of 
the  multitude  ;  and,  both  in  larger  and  more 
numerous  galleries  than  we  now  possess,  and 
by  distribution,  according  to  his  wealth  and 
wish,  in  each  man's  home,  to  render  the  influ- 
ence of  art  somewhat  correspondent  in  extent 
to  that  of  literature.  Here,  then,  is  the  subtle 
balance  which  your  economist  has  to  strike  : 
to  accumulate  so  much  art  as  to  be  able  to 
give  the  whole  nation  a  supply  of  it,  according 
to  its  need,  and  yet  to  regulate  its  distribution 


II.     ACCUMULATION    AND    DISTRIBUTION.       J"J 

so   that  there   shall  be  no  glut  of  it,  nor  con- 
tempt. 

68.  A  difficult  balance,  indeed,  for  us  to  hold, 
if  it  were  left  merely  to  our  skill  to  poise ;  but 
the  just  point  between  poverty  and  profusion 
has  been  fixed  for  us  accurately  by  the  wise 
laws  of  Providence.  If  you  carefully  watch 
for  all  the  genius  you  can  detect,  apply  it 
to  good  service,  and  then  reverently  preserve 
what  it  produces,  you  will  never  have  too  little 
art ;  and  if,  on  the  other  hand,  you  never  force 
an  artist  to  work  hurriedly,  for  daily  bread, 
nor  imperfectly,  because  you  would  rather  have 
showy  works  than  complete  ones,  you  will  never 
have  too  much.  Do  not  force  the  multiplica- 
tion of  art,  and  you  will  not  have  it  too  cheap  ; 
do  not  wantonly  destroy  it,  and  you  will  not 
have  it  too  dear. 

69.  "But  who  wantonly  destroys  it?"  you 
will  ask.  Why,  we  all  do.  Perhaps  you 
thought,  when  I  came  to  this  part  of  out- 
subject,  corresponding  to  that  set  forth  in  our 
housewife's  economy  by  the  "  keeping  her  em- 
broidery from  the  moth,"  that  I  was  going  to 
tell  you  only  how  to  take  better  care  of  pic- 
tures, how  to  clean    them,   and  varnish   them, 


yS  "  A   JOY    FOR    EVER." 

and  where  to  put  them  away  safely  when  you 
went  out  of  town.  Ah,  not  at  all.  The  utmost 
I  have  to  ask  of  you  is,  that  you  will  not  pull 
them  to  pieces,  and  trample  them  under  your 
feet.  "  What ! "  you  will  say,  "  when  do  we 
do  such  things  ?  Haven't  we  built  a  perfectly 
beautiful  gallery  for  all  the  pictures  we  have  to 
take  care  of?  "  Yes,  you  have,  for  the  pictures 
which  are  definitely  sent  to  Manchester  to  be 
taken  care  of.  But  there  are  quantities  of 
pictures  out  of  Manchester  which  it  is  your 
business,  and  mine  too,  to  take  care  of  no  less 
than  of  these,  and  which  we  are  at  this  mo- 
ment employing  ourselves  in  pulling  to  pieces 
by  deputy.  I  will  tell  you  what  they  are, 
and  where  they  are,  in  a  minute  ;  only  first  let 
me  state  one  more  of  those  main  principles  of 
political  economy  on  which  the  matter  hinges. 
70.  I  must  begin  a  little  apparently  wide  of 
the  mark,  and  ask  you  to  reflect  if  there  is 
any  way  in  which  we  waste  money  more  in 
England  than  in  building  fine  tombs  ?  Our 
respect  for  the  dead,  when  they  are  just  dead, 
is  something  wonderful,  and  the  way  we  show  it 
more  wonderful  still.  We  show  it  with  black 
feathers   and   black   horses ;   we   show  it  with 


II.       ACCUMULATION    AND    DISTRIBUTION.  79 

black  dresses  and  bright  heraldries;  we  show  it 
with  costly  obelisks  and  sculptures  of  sorrow, 
which  spoil  half  of  our  most  beautiful  cathe- 
drals. We  show  it  with  frightful  gratings  and 
vaults,  and  lids  of  dismal  stone,  in  the  midst 
of  the  quiet  grass  ;  and  last,  and  not  least,  we 
show  it  by  permitting  ourselves  to  tell  any 
number  of  lies  we  think  amiable  or  credible, 
in  the  epitaph.  This  feeling  is  common  to  the 
poor  as  well  as  the  rich ;  and  we  all  know 
how  many  a  poor  family  will  nearly  ruin  them- 
selves, to  testify  their  respect  for  some  member 
of  it  in  his  coffin,  whom  they  never  much  cared 
for  when  he  was  out  of  it  ;  and  how  often, 
it  happens  that  a  poor  old  woman  will  starve 
herself  to  death,  in  order  that  she  may  be 
respectably  buried. 

71.  Now,  this  being  one  of  the  most  com- 
plete and  special  ways  cf  wasting  money, — 
no  money  being  less  productive  of  good,  or 
of  any  percentage  whatever,  than  that  which 
we  shake  away  from  the  ends  of  undertakers' 
plumes, — it  is  of  course  the  duty  of  all  good 
economists,  and  kind  persons,  to  prove  and 
proclaim  continually,  to  the  poor  as  well  as 
the  rich,  that  respect  for  the  dead  is  not  really 


SO  "  A    JOY    FOR    EVER." 

shown  by  laying  great  stones  on  them  to  tell 
us  where  they  are  laid ;  but  by  remembering 
where  they  are  laid,  without  a  stone  to  help 
us ;  trusting  them  to  the  sacred  grass  and 
saddened  flowers ;  and  still  more,  that  respect 
and  love  are  shown  to  them,  not  by  great 
monuments  to  them  which  we  build  with  our 
hands,  but  by  letting  the  monuments  stand, 
which  they  built  with  their  own.  And  this  is 
the  point  now  in  question. 

72.  Observe,  there  are  two  great  reciprocal 
duties  concerning  industry,  constantly  to  be 
exchanged  between  the  living  and  the  dead. 
We,  as  we  live  and  work,  are  to  be  always 
thinking  of  those  who  are  to  come  after  us ; 
that  what  we  do  may  be  serviceable,  as  far 
as  we  can  make  it  so,  to  them,  as  well  as  to 
us.  Then,  when  we  die,  it  is  the  duty  of 
those  who  come  after  us  to  accept  this  work 
of  ours  with  thanks  and  remembrance,  not 
thrusting  it  aside  or  tearing  it  down  the 
moment  they  think  they  have  no  use  for  it. 
And  each  generation  will  only  be  happy  or 
powerful  to  the  pitch  that  it  ought  to  be,  in 
fulfilling  these  two  duties  to  the  Past  and  the 
Future.     Its  own  work  will  never  be  rightly 


II.     ACCUMULATION    AND    DISTRIBUTION.        Si 

done,  even  for  itself — never  good,  or  noble,  or 
pleasurable  to  its  own  eyes — -if  it  does  not 
prepare  it  also  for  the  eyes  of  generations  yet 
to  come.  And  its  own  possessions  will  never 
be  enough  for  it,  and  its  own  wisdom  never 
enough  for  it,  unless  it  avails  itself  gratefully 
and  tenderly  of  the  treasures  and  the  wisdom 
bequeathed  to  it  by  its  ancestors. 

73.  For,  be  assured,  that  all  the  best  things 
and  treasures  of  this  world  are  not  to  be  pro- 
duced by  each  generation  for  itself;  but  we 
are  all  intended,  not  to  carve  our  work  in 
snow  that  will  melt,  but  each  and  all  of  us 
to  be  continually  rolling  a  great  white  gather- 
ing snowball,  higher  and  higher — larger  and 
larger — along  the  Alps  of  human  power.  Thus 
the  science  of  nations  is  to  be  accumulative 
from  father  to  son :  each  learning  a  little 
more  and  a  little  more ;  each  receiving  all 
that  was  known,  and  adding  its  own  gain  : 
the  history  and  poetry  of  nations  are  to  be 
accumulative ;  each  generation  treasuring  the 
history  and  the  songs  of  its  ancestors,  adding 
its  own  history  and  its  own  songs  :  and  the 
art  of  nations  is  to  be  accumulative,  just  as 
science   and  history  are  ;    the   work   of  living 

6 


82  "a  joy  for  ever." 

men  is  not  superseding,  but  building  itself  upon 
the  work  of  the  past.  Nearly  every  great  and 
intellectual  race,  of  the  world  has  produced, 
at  every  period  of  its  career,  an  art  with 
some  peculiar  and  precious  character  about 
it,  wholly  unattainable  by  any  other  race,  and 
at  any  other  time;  and > the  intention  of  Provi- 
dence concerning  that  art,  is  evidently  that 
it  should  all  grow  together  into  one  mighty 
temple ;  the  rough  stones  and  the  smooth  all 
finding  their  place,  and  rising,  day  by  day,  in 
richer  and  higher  pinnacles  to  heaven. 

74.  Now,  just  fancy  what  a  position  the 
world,  considered  as  one  great  workroom— one 
great  factory  in  the  form  of  a  globe — would 
have  been  in  by  this  time,  if  it  had  in  the 
least  understood  this  duty,  or  been  capable 
of  it.  Fancy  what  we  should  have  had  around 
us  now,  if,  instead  of  quarrelling  and  fighting 
over  their  work,  the  nations  had  aided  each 
other  in  their  work,  or  if  even  in  their  con- 
quests, instead  of  effacing  the  memorials  ot 
those  they  succeeded  and  subdued,  they  had 
guarded  the  spoils  of  their  victories.  Fancy 
what  Europe  would  be  now,  if  the  delicate 
statues    and    temples    of    the    Greeks — if    the 


II.     ACCUMULATION    AND    DISTRIBUTION.        83 

broad  roads  and  massy  walls  of  the  Romans 
— if  the  noble  and  pathetic  architecture  of 
the  middle  ages,  had  not  been  ground  to  dust 
by  mere  human  rage.  You  talk  of  the  scythe 
of  Time,  and  the  tooth  of  Time  :  I  tell  you, 
Time  is  scytheless  and  toothless ;  it  is  we 
who  gnaw  like  the  worm — we  who  smite  like 
the  scythe.  It  is  ourselves  who  abolish — 
ourselves  who  consume :  we  are  the  mildew, 
and  the  flame  ;  and  the  soul  of  man  is  to  its 
own  work  as  the  moth  that  frets  when  it 
cannot  fly,  and  as  the  hidden  flame  that  blasts 
where  it  cannot  illuminate.  All  these  lost 
treasures  of  human  intellect  have  been  wholly 
destroyed  by  human  industry  of  destruction  > 
the  marble  would  have  stood  its  two  thou- 
sand years  as  well  in  the  polished  statue  as 
in  the  Parian  cliff;  but  we  men  have  ground 
it  to  powder,  and  mixed  it  with  our  own 
ashes.  The  walls  and  the  ways  would  have 
stood — it  is  we  who  have  left  not  one  stone 
upon  another,  and  restored  its  pathlessness  to 
the  desert ;  the  great  cathedrals  of  old  religion 
would  have  stood — it  is  we  who  have  dashed 
down  the  carved  work  with  axes  and  hammers, 
and  bid  the  mountain-grass    bloom    upon   the 


84  "  A   JOY    FOR    EVER." 

pavement,    and   the    sea-winds    chant   in    the 
galleries. 

75.  You  will  perhaps  think  all  this  was 
somehow  necessary  for  the  development  of  the 
human  race.  I  cannot  stay  now  to  dispute 
that,  though  I  would  willingly ;  but  do  you 
think  it  is  still  necessary  for  that  development  ? 
Do  you  think  that  in  this  nineteenth  century 
it  is  still  necessary  for  the  European  nations 
to  turn  all  the  places  where  their  principal 
art-treasures  are  into  battle-fields  ?  For  that 
is  what  they  are  doing  even  while  I  speak ; 
the  great  firm  of  the  world  is  managing  its 
business  at  this  moment,  just  as  it  has  done 
in  past  time.  Imagine  what  would  be  the 
thriving  circumstances  of  a  manufacturer  of 
some  delicate  produce — suppose  glass,  or  china 
—  in  whose  workshop  and  exhibition  rooms 
all  the  workmen  and  clerks  began  fighting 
at  least  once  a  day,  first  blowing  off  the 
steam,  and  breaking  all  the  machinery  they 
could  reach ;  and  then  making  fortresses  of 
all  the  cupboards,  and  attacking  and  de- 
fending the  show-tables,  the  victorious  party 
finally  throwing  everything  they  could  get  hold 
of  out    of   the    window,    by    way  of  showing 


II.     ACCUMULATION    AND    DISTRIBUTION.         85 

their  triumph,  and  the  poor  manufacturer 
picking  up  and  putting  away  at  last  a  cup 
here  and  a  handle  there.  A  fine  prosperous 
business  that  would  be,  would  it  not  ?  and 
yet  that  is  precisely  the  way  the  great  manu- 
facturing firm  of  the  world  carries  on  its 
business. 

76.  It  has  so  arranged  its  political  squabbles 
for  the  last  six  or  seven  hundred  years,  that 
not  one  of  them  could  be  fought  out  but  in 
the  midst  of  its  most  precious  art ;  and  it  so 
arranges  them  to  this  day.  For  example,  if  I 
were  asked  to  lay  my  finger,  in  a  map  of  the 
world,  on  the  spot  of  the  world's  surface  which 
contained  at  this  moment  the  most  singular 
concentration  of  art-teaching  and  art-treasure, 
I  should  lay  it  on  the  name  of  the  town  of 
Verona.  Other  cities,  indeed,  contain  more 
works  of  carriageable  art,  but  none  contain 
so  much  of  the  glorious  local  art,  and  of  the 
springs  and  sources  of  art,  which  can  by  no 
means  be  made  subjects  of  package  or  porter- 
age, nor,  I  grieve  to  say,  of  salvage.  Vercna 
possesses,  in  the  first  place,  not  the  largest, 
but  the  most  perfect  and  intelligible  Roman 
amphitheatre    that    exists,     still    unbroken    in 


86  "a  joy  for  ever." 

circle  of  step,  and  strong  in  succession  of  vault 
and  arch  :  it  contains  minor  Roman  monu- 
ments, gateways,  theatres,  baths,  wrecks  of 
temples,  which  give  the  streets  of  its  suburbs 
a  character  of  antiquity  unexampled  elsewhere, 
except  in  Rome  itself.  But  it  contains,  in  the 
next  place,  what  Rome  does  not  contain — 
perfect  examples  of  the  great  twelfth-century 
Lombardic  architecture,  which  was  the  root  of 
all  the  mediaeval  art  of  Italy,  without  which  no 
Giottos,  no  Angelicos,  no  Raphaels  would  have 
been  possible :  it  contains  that  architecture, 
not  in  rude  forms,  but  in  the  most  perfect  and 
loveliest  types  it  ever  attained — contains  those, 
not  in  ruins,  nor  in  altered  and  hardly  deci- 
pherable fragments,  but  in  churches  perfect 
from  porch  to  apse,  with  all  their  carving 
fresh,  their  pillars  firm,  their  joints  unloosened. 
Besides  these,  it  includes  examples  of  the  great 
thirteenth  and  fourteenth-century  Gothic  of 
Italy,  not  merely  perfect,  but  elsewhere  un- 
rivalled. At  Rome,  the  Roman — at  Pisa,  the 
Lombard — architecture  may  be  seen  in  greater 
or  in  equal  nobleness  ;  but  not  at  Rome,  nor 
Pisa,  nor  Florence,  nor  in  any  city  of  the 
world,  is  there  a  great   mediaeval  Gothic   like 


II.     ACCUMULATION    AND    DISTRIBUTION.  Sj 

the  Gothic  of  Verona.  Elsewhere,  it  is  either 
less  pure  in  type  or  less  lovely  in  completion  : 
only  at  Verona  may  you  see  it  in  the  simplicity 
of  its  youthful  power,  and  the  tenderness  of 
its  accomplished  beauty.  And  Verona  pos- 
sesses, in  the  last  place,  the  loveliest  Renais- 
sance architecture  of  Italy,  not  disturbed  by 
pride,  nor  defiled  by  luxury,  but  rising  in 
fair  fulfilment  of  domestic  service,  serenity 
of  effortless  grace,  and  modesty  of  home  se- 
clusion ;  its  richest  work  given  to  the  win- 
dows that  open  on  the  narrowest  streets  and 
most  silent  gardens.  All  this  she  possesses, 
in  the  midst  of  natural  scenery  such  as  assur- 
edly exists  nowhere  else  in  the  habitable 
globe — a  wild  Alpine  river  foaming  at  her  feet, 
from  whose  shore  the  rocks  rise  in  a  great 
crescent,  dark  with  cypress,  and  misty  with 
olive :  inimitably,  from  before  her  southern 
gates,  the  tufted  plains  of  Italy  sweep  and 
fade  in  golden  light ;  around  her,  north  and 
west,  the  Alps  crowd  in  crested  troops,  and 
the  winds  of  Benacus  bear  to  her  the  coolness 
of  their  snows. 

77.  And  this  is  the  city — such,  and  possess- 
ing sucli  things  as  these — at  whose  gates  the 


88  "  A    JOY    FOR    EVER." 

decisive  battles  of  Italy  are  fought  continually  : 
three  days  her  towers  trembled  with  the  echo 
of  the  cannon  of  Areola  ;  heaped  pebbles  of 
the  Mincio  divide  her  fields  to  this  hour  with 
lines  of  broken  rampart,  whence  the  tide  of 
war  rolled  back  to  Novara  ;  and  now  on  that 
crescent  of  her  eastern  cliffs,  whence  the  full 
moon  used  to  rise  through  the  bars  of  the 
cypresses  in  her  burning  summer  twilights, 
touching  with  soft  increase  of  silver  light  the 
rosy  marbles  of  her  balconies, — along  the  ridge 
of  that  encompassing  rock,  other  circles  are 
increasing  now,  white  and  pale  ;  walled  towers 
of  cruel  strength,  sable-spotted  with  cannon- 
courses.  I  tell  you,  I  have  seen,  when  the 
thunderclouds  came  down  on  those  Italian 
hills,  and  all  their  crags  were  dipped  in  the 
dark,  terrible  purple,  as  if  the  winepress  of  the 
wrath  of  God  had  stained  their  mountain 
raiment — I  have  seen  the  hail  fall  in  Italy  till 
the  forest  branches  stood  stripped  and  bare  as 
if  blasted  by  the  locust ;  but  the  white  hail 
never  fell  from  those  clouds  of  heaven  as  the 
black  hail  will  fall  from  the  clouds  of  hell,  if 
ever  one  breath  of  Italian  life  stirs  again  in 
the  streets  of  Verona. 


II.     ACCUMULATION    AND    DISTRIBUTION.       89 

78.  Sad  as  you  will  feel  this  to  be,  I  do  not 
say  that  you  can  directly  prevent  it ;  you 
cannot  drive  the  Austrians  out  of  Italy,  nor 
prevent  them  from  building  forts  where  they 
choose.  But  I  do  say,*  that  you,  and  I,  and 
all  of  us,  ought  to  be  both  acting  and  feeling 
with  a  full  knowledge  and  understanding  of 
these  things ;  and  that,  without  trying  to 
excite  revolutions  or  weaken  governments,  we 
may  give  our  own  thoughts  and  help,  so  as 
in  a  measure  to  prevent  needless  destruction. 
We  should  do  this,  if  we  only  realized  the 
thing  thoroughly.  You  drive  out  day  by  day 
through  your    own   pretty    suburbs,    and    you 

*  The  reader  can  hardly  but  remember  Mrs.  Browning's 
beautiful  appeal  for  Italy,  made  on  the  occasion  of  the  first 
great  Exhibition  of  Art  in  England  : — 
O  Magi  of  the  east  and  of  the  west, 
Your  incense,  gold,  and  myrrh  are  excellent  ! — 
What  gifts  for  Christ,  then,  bring  ye  with  the  rest? 
Your  hands  have  worked  well.     Is  your  courage  spent 
In  handwork  only  ?     Have  you  nothing  best, 
Which  generous  souls  may  perfect  and  present, 
And  He  shall  thank  the  givers  for?  no  light 
Of  teaching,  liberal  nations,  for  the  poor, 
Who  sit  in  darkness  when  it  is  not  night? 
No  cure  for  wicked  children?     Christ. — no  cure, 
No  help  for  women,  sobbing  out  of  sight 

e  men  made  the  laws?  no  brothel  lure 


90  "a  joy  for  ever." 

think  only  of  making,  with  what  money  you 
have  to  spare,  your  gateways  handsomer,  and 
your  carriage-drives  wider — and  your  drawing- 
rooms  more  splendid,  having  a  vague  notion 
that  you  are  all  the  while  patronizing  and  ad- 
vancing art;  and  you  make  no  effort  to  con- 
ceive the  fact  that,  within  a  few  hours'  journey 
of  you,  there  are  gateways  and  drawing-rooms 
which  might  just  as  well  be  yours  as  these,  all 
built  already  ;  gateways  built  by  the  greatest 
masters  of  sculpture  that  ever  struck  mar- 
ble ;  drawing-rooms,  painted  by  Titian  and 
Veronese ;    and    you    won't    accept    nor   save 

Burnt  out  by  popular  lightnings  ?     Hast  thou  found 

No  remedy,  my  England,  for  such  woes? 

No  outlet,  Austria,  for  the  scourged  and  bound, 

No  call  back  for  the  exiled  ?  no  repose, 

Russia,  for  knouted  Poles  worked  underground, 

And  gentle  ladies  bleached  among  the  snows? 

No  mercy  for  the  slave,  America? 

No  hope  for  Rome,  free  France,  chivalric  France  ? 

Alas,  great  nations  have  great  shames,  I  say. 

No  pity,  O  world,  no  tender  utterance 

Of  benediction,  and  prayers  stretched  this  way 

For  poor  Italia,  baffled  by  mischance  ? 

O  gracious  nations,  give  some  ear  to  me  ! 

You  all  go  to  your  Fair,  and  I  am  one 

Who  at  the  roadside  of  humanity 

Beseech  your  alms, — God's  justice  to  be  done. 

So,  prosper  ! 


II.     ACCUMULATION    AND    DISTRIBUTION.        9 1 

these  as  they  are,  but  you  will  rather  fetch 
the  house-painter  from  over  the  way,  and 
let  Titian  and  Veronese  house  the  rats. 

79.  "Yes,"  of  course,  you  answer;  "we 
want  nice  houses  here,  not  houses  in  Verona. 
What  should  we  do  with  houses  in  Verona  ?  " 
And  I  answer,  do  precisely  what  you  do  with 
the  most  expensive  part  of  your  possessions 
here  :  take  pride  in  them — only  a  noble  pride. 
You  know  well,  when  you  examine  your  own 
hearts,  that  the  greater  part  of  the  sums  you 
spend  on  possessions  is  spent  for  pride. 
Why  are  your  carriages  nicely  painted  and 
finished  outside  ?  You  don't  see  the  outsides 
as  you  sit  in  them — the  outsides  are  for  other 
people  to  see.  Why  are  your  exteriors  of 
houses  so  well  finished,  your  furniture  so  po- 
lished and  costly,  but  for  other  people  to  see  ? 
You  are  just  as  comfortable  yourselves,  writing 
on  your  old  friend  of  a  desk,  with  the  white 
cloudings  in  his  leather,  and  using  the  light  of 
a  window  which  is  nothing  but  a  hole  in  the 
brick  wall.  And  all  that  is  desirable  to  be 
done  in  this  matter  is  merely  to  take  pride  in 
preserving  great  art,  instead  of  in  producing 
mean  art ;  pride  in  the  possession  of  precious 


92  "a  joy  for  ever." 

and  enduring  things,  a  little  way  off,  instead  of 
slight  and  perishing  things  near  at  hand.  You 
know,  in  old  English  times,  our  kings  liked  to 
have  lordships  and  dukedoms  abroad  :  and  why 
should  not  your  merchant  princes  like  to  have 
lordships  and  estates  abroad  ?  Believe  me, 
rightly  understood,  it  would  be  a  prouder,  and 
in  the  full  sense  of  our  English  word,  more 
"  respectable "  thing  to  be  lord  of  a  palace  at 
Verona,  or  of  a  cloister  full  of  frescoes  at  Flo- 
rence, than  to  have  a  file  of  servants  dressed 
in  the  finest  liveries  that  ever  tailor  stitched, 
as  long  as  would  reach  from  here  to  Bolton  : 
— yes,  and  a  prouder  thing  to  send  people  to 
travel  in  Italy,  who  would  have  to  say  every 
now  and  then,  of  some  fair  piece  of  art,  "  Ah  ! 
this  was  kept  here  for  us  by  the  good  people 
of  Manchester,"  than  to  bring  them  travelling 
all  the  way  here,  exclaiming  of  your  various 
art  treasures,  "  These  were  brought  here  for 
us,  (not  altogether  without  harm)  by  the  good 
people  of  Manchester." 

80.  "Ah!"  but  you  say,  "the  Art  Trea- 
sures Exhibition  will  pay  ;  but  Veronese  palaces 
won't."  Pardon  me.  They  would  pay,  less 
directly,  but  far  more  richly.      Do  you  suppose 


II.      ACCUMULATION    AND    DISTRIBUTION.  93 

it  is  in  the  long  run  good  for  Manchester,  or 
good  for  England,  that  the  Continent  should  be 
in  the  state  it  is  ?  Do  you  think  the  perpetual 
fear  of  revolution,  or  the  perpetual  repression 
of  thought  and  energy  that  clouds  and  en- 
cumbers the  nations  of  Europe,  is  eventually 
profitable  for  its  ?  Were  \\'2  any  the  better 
of  the  course  of  affairs  in  '48  ?  or  has  the 
stabling  of  the  dragoon  horses  in  the  great 
houses  of  Italy  any  distinct  effect  in  the 
promotion  of  the  cotton-trade  ?  Not  so.  But 
every  stake  that  you  could  hold  in  the  stability 
of  the  Continent,  and  every  effort  that  you 
could  make  to'  give  example  of  English  habits 
and  principles  on  the  Continent,  and  every 
kind  deed  that  you  could  do  in  relieving 
distress  and  preventing  despair  on  the  Con- 
tinent, would  have  tenfold  reaction  on  the 
prosperity  of  England,  and  open  and  urge,  in 
a  thousand  unforeseen  directions,  the  sluices 
of  commerce  and  the  springs  of  industry. 

81.  I  could  press,  if  I  chose,  both  these 
motives  upon  you,  of  pride  and  self-interest, 
with  more  force,  but  these  are  not  motives 
which  ought  to  be  urged  upon  you  at  all. 
The  only  motive  that   I   ought  to  put  before 


94  "a  joy  for  ever." 

you  is  simply  that  it  would  be  right  to  do 
this ;  that  the  holding  of  property  abroad,  and 
the  personal  efforts  of  Englishmen  to  redeem 
the  condition  of  foreign  nations,  are  among  the 
most  direct  pieces  of  duty  which  our  wealth 
renders  incumbent  upon  us.  I  do  not — and  in 
all  truth  and  deliberateness  I  say  this — I  do 
not  know  anything  more  ludicrous  among  the 
self-deceptions  of  well-meaning  people  than 
their  notion  of  patriotism,  as  requiring  them 
to  limit  their  efforts  to  the  good  of  their  own 
country ; — the  notion  that  charity  is  a  geo- 
graphical virtue,  and  that  what  it  is  holy  and 
righteous  to  do  for  people  on  one  bank  of  a 
river,  it  is  quite  improper  and  unnatural  to  do 
for  people  on  the  other.  It  will  be  a  wonder- 
ful thing,  some  day  or  other,  for  the  Christian 
world  to  remember,  that  it  went  on  thinking 
for  two  thousand  years  that  neighbours  were 
neighbours  at  Jerusalem,  but  not  at  Jericho ; 
a  wonderful  thing  for  us  English  to  reflect,  in 
after-years,  how  long  it  was  before  we  could 
shake  hands  with  anybody  across  that  shallow 
salt  wash,  which  the  very  chalk-dust  of  its  two 
shores  whitens  from  Folkestone  to  Ambleteuse. 
82.    Nor  ought  the   motive   of  gratitude,  as 


II.  ACCUMULATION    AND    DISTRIBUTION.         95 

well  as  that  of  mercy,  to  be  without  its  influ- 
ence on  you,  who  have  been  the  first  to  ask  to 
see,  and  the  first  to  show  to  us,  the  treasures 
which  this  poor  lost  Italy  has  given  to  England- 
Remember,  all  these  things  that  delight  you 
here  were  hers — hers  either  in  fact  or  in  teach- 
ing ;  hers,  in  fact,  are  all  the  most  powerful 
and  most  touching  paintings  of  old  time  that 
now  glow  upon  your  walls  ;  hers  in  teaching 
are  all  the  best  and  greatest  of  descendant 
souls — your  Reynolds  and  your  Gainsborough 
never  could  have  painted  but  for  Venice ;  and 
the  energies  which  have  given  the  only  true 
life  to  your  existing  art  were  first  stirred  by 
voices  of  the  dead  that  haunted  the  Sacred 
Field  of  Pisa. 

Well,  all  these  motives  for  some  definite 
course  of  action  on  our  part  towards  foreign 
countries  rest  upon  very  serious  facts ;  too 
serious,  perhaps  you  will  think,  to  be  inter- 
fered with  ;  for  we  are  all  of  us  in  the  habit 
of  leaving  great  things  alone,  as  if  Providence 
would  mind  them,  and  attending  ourselves 
only  to  little  things  which  we  know,  practi- 
cally, Providence  doesn't  mind  unless  we  do. 
We    are    ready    enough    to    give    care    to    the 


g6  "a  joy  for  ever." 

growing  of  pines  and  lettuces,  knowing  that 
they  don't  grow  Providentially  sweet  or  large 
unless  we  look  after  them  ;  but  we  don't  give 
any  care  to  the  good  of  Italy  or  Germany, 
because  we  think  that  they  will  grow  Provi- 
dentially happy  without  any  of  our  meddling. 

83.  Let  us  leave  the  great  things,  then,  and 
think  of  little  things ;  not  of  the  destruction  of 
whole  provinces  in  war,  which  it  may  not  be 
any  business  of  ours  to  prevent ;  but  of  the 
destruction  of  poor  little  pictures  in  peace, 
from  which  it  surely  would  not  be  much  out 
of  our  way  to  save  them.  You  know  I  said, 
just  now,  we  were  all  of  us  engaged  in  pulling 
pictures  to  pieces  by  deputy,  and  you  did  not 
believe  me.  Consider,  then,  this  similitude  of 
ourselves.  Suppose  you  saw  (as  I  doubt  not 
you  often  do  see)  a  prudent  and  kind  young 
lady  sitting  at  work,  in  the  corner  of  a  quiet 
room,  knitting  comforters  for  her  cousins,  and 
that  just  outside,  in  the  hall,  you  saw  a  cat  and 
her  kittens  at  play  among  the  family  pictures  ; 
amusing  themselves  especially  with  the  best 
Vandykes,  by  getting  on  the  tops  of  the  frames, 
and  then  scrambling  down  the  canvases  by 
their  claws ;  and  on  some  one's  informing  the 


II.     ACCUMULATION    AND    DISTRIBUTION.        97 

young  lady  of  these  proceedings  of  the  cat  and 
kittens,  suppose  she  answered  that  it  wasn't 
her  cat,  but  her  sister's,  and  the  pictures 
weren't  hers,  but  her  uncle's,  and  she  couldn't 
leave  her  work,  for  she  had  to  make  so  many 
pairs  of  comforters  before  dinner.  Would  you 
not  say  that  the  prudent  and  kind  young  lady 
was,  on  the  whole,  answerable  for  the  addi- 
tional touches  of  claw  on  the  Vandykes  ? 

84.  Now,  that  is  precisely  what  we  prudent 
and  kind  English  are  doing,  only  on  a  larger 
scale.  Here  we  sit  in  Manchester,  hard  at 
work,  very  properly,  making  comforters  for 
our  cousins  all  over  the  world.  Just  outside 
there  in  the  hall — that  beautiful  marble  hall  of 
Italy — the  cats  and  kittens  and  monkeys  are 
at  play  among  the  pictures  :  I  assure  you,  in 
the  course  of  the  fifteen  years  in  which  I  have 
been  working  in  those  places  in  which  the 
most  precious  remnants  of  European  art  exist, 
a  sensation,  whether  I  would  or  no,  was  gradu- 
ally made  distinct  and  deep  in  my  mind,  that 
I  was  living  and  working  in  the  midst  of  a  den 
of  monkeys  ; — sometimes  amiable  and  affec- 
tionate monkeys,  with  all  manner  of  winning 
ways   and    kind    intentions, — -more    frequently 

7 


98  "  A    JOY    FOR    EVER." 

selfish  and  malicious  monkeys  ;  but,  whatever 
their  disposition,  squabbling  continually  about 
nuts,  and  the  best  places  on  the  barren  sticks 
of  trees  ;  and  that  all  this  monkeys'  den  was 
filled,  by  mischance,  with  precious  pictures, 
and  the  witty  and  wilful  beasts  were  always 
wrapping  themselves  up  and  going  to  sleep 
in  pictures,  or  tearing  holes  in  them  to  grin 
through ;  or  tasting  them  and  spitting  them 
out  again,  or  twisting  them  up  into  ropes  and 
making  swings  of  them  ;  and  that  sometimes 
only,  by  watching  one's  opportunity,  and  bear- 
ing a  scratch  or  a  bite,  one  could  rescue  the 
corner  of  a  Tintoret,  or  Paul  Veronese,  and 
push  it  through  the  bars  into  a  place  of 
safety. 

85.  Literally,  I  assure  you,  this  was,  and 
this  is,  the  fixed  impression  on  my  mind  of  the 
state  of  matters  in  Italy.  And  see  how.  The 
professors  of  art  in  Italy,  having  long  followed 
a  method  of  study  peculiar  to  themselves,  have 
at  last  arrived  at  a  form  of  art  peculiar  to  them- 
selves ;  very  different  from  that  which  was 
arrived  at  by  Correggio  and  Titian.  Naturally, 
the  professors  like  their  own  form  the  best ; 
and,   as  the  old  pictures  are  generally  not   so 


II.     ACCUMULATION    AND    DISTRIBUTION.        99 

startling  to  the  eye  as  the  modern  ones,  the 
dukes  and  counts  who  possess  them,  and  who 
like  to  see  their  galleries  look  new  and  fine 
(and  are  persuaded  also  that  a  celebrated  chef- 
d'oeuvre  ought  always  to  catch  the  eye  at  a 
quarter  of  a  mile  off),  believe  the  professors 
who  tell  them  their  sober  pictures  are  quite 
faded,  and  good  for  nothing,  and  should  all  be 
brought  bright  again  ;  and,  accordingly,  give 
the  sober  pictures  to  the  professors,  to  be  put 
right  by  rules  of  art.  Then,  the  professors 
repaint  the  old  pictures  in  all  the  principal 
places,  leaving  perhaps  only  a  bit  of  back- 
ground to  set  off  their  own  work.  And  thus 
the  professors  come  to  be  generally  figured,  in 
my  mind,  as  the  monkeys  who  tear  holes  in  the 
pictures,  to  grin  through.  Then  the  picture- 
dealers,  who  live  by  the  pictures,  cannot  sell 
them  to  the  English  in  their  old  and  pure 
state ;  all  the  good  work  must  be  covered 
with  new  paint,  and  varnished  so  as  to  look 
like  one  of  the  professorial  pictures  in  the  great 
gallery,  before  it  is  saleable.  And  thus  the 
dealers  come  to  be  imaged,  in  my  mind,  as 
the  monkeys  who  make  ropes  of  the  pictures, 
to  swing  by.     Then,  every  now  and   then    at 


IOO  -A   JOY    FOR    EVER. 

some  old  stable,  or  wine-cellar,  or  timber-shed, 
behind  some  forgotten  vats  or  faggots,  some- 
body finds  a  fresco  of  Peruglno's  or  Giotto's, 
but  doesn't  think  much  of  it,  and  has  no  idea 
of  having  people  coming  into  his  cellar,  or 
being  obliged  to  move  his  faggots  ;  and  so  he 
whitewashes  the  fresco,  and  puts  the  faggots 
back  again  ;  and  these  kind  of  persons,  there- 
fore, come  generally  to  be  imaged,  in  my  mind, 
as  the  monkeys  who  taste  the  pictures,  and 
spit  them  out,  not  finding  them  nice.  While, 
finally,  the  squabbling  for  nuts  and  apples 
(called  in  Italy  "  bella  liberta  ")  goes  on  all  day 
long. 

86.  Now,  all  this  might  soon  be  put  an  end 
to,  if  we  English,  who  are  so  fond  of  travelling 
in  the  body,  would  also  travel  a  little  in  soul ! 
We  think  it  a  great  triumph  to  get  our  pack- 
ages and  our  persons  carried  at  a  fast  pace,  but 
we  never  take  the  slightest  trouble  to  put  any 
pace  into  our  perceptions ;  we  stay  usually  at 
home  in  thought,  or  if  we  ever  mentally  see  the 
world,  it  is  at  the  old  stage-coach  or  waggon 
rate.  Do  but  consider  what  an  odd  sight  it 
would  be,  if  it  were  only  quite  clear  to  you 
how  things  are  really  going  on — how,  here  in 


II.     ACCUMULATION    AND    DISTRIBUTION.       IOI 

England,  we  are  making  enormous  and  expen- 
sive efforts  to  produce  new  art  of  all  kinds, 
knowing  and  confessing  all  the  while  that  the 
greater  part  of  it  is  bad,  but  struggling  still 
to  produce  new  patterns  of  wall-papers,  and 
new  shapes  of  teapots,  and  new  pictures,  and 
statues,  and  architecture ;  and  pluming  and 
cackling  if  ever  a  teapot  or  a  picture  has  the 
least  good  in  it ; — all  the  while  taking  no 
thought  whatever  of  the  best  possible  pictures, 
and  statues,  and  wall-patterns  already  in  exist- 
ence, which  require  nothing  but  to  be  taken 
common  care  of,  and  kept  from  damp  and  dust : 
but  we  let  the  walls  fall  that  Giotto  patterned, 
and  the  canvases  rot  that  Tintoret  painted,  and 
the  architecture  be  dashed  to  pieces  that  St. 
Louis  built,  while  we  are  furnishing  our  draw- 
ing-rooms with  prize  upholstery,  and  writing 
accounts  of  our  handsome  warehouses  to  the 
country  papers.  Don't  think  I  use  my  words 
vaguely  or  generally  :  I  speak  of  literal  facts. 
Giotto's  frescoes  at  Assisi  are  perishing  at  this 
moment  for  want  of  decent  care  ;  Tintorct's 
pictures  in  San  Sebastian,  at  Venice,  are  at 
this  instant  rotting  piecemeal  into  grey  rags; 
St.   Louis's  chapel,  at  Carcassonne,  is  at   this 


102  "  A   JOY    FOR    EVER. 

moment  lying  in  shattered  fragments  in  the 
market-place.  And  here  we  are  all  cawing  and 
crowing,  poor  little  half-fledged  daws  as  we 
are,  about  the  pretty  sticks  and  wool  in  our 
own  nests.  There's  hardly  a  day  passes,  when 
I  am  at  home,  but  I  get  a  letter  from  some  well- 
meaning  country  clergyman,  deeply  anxious 
about  the  state  of  his  parish  church,  and  break- 
ing his  heart  to  get  money  together  that  he 
may  hold  up  some  wretched  remnant  of  Tudor 
tracery,  with  one  niche  in  the  corner  and 
no  statue — when  all  the  while  the  mightiest 
piles  of  religious  architecture  and  sculpture 
that  ever  the  world  saw  are  being  blasted  and 
withered  away,  without  one  glance  of  pity  or 
regret.  The  country  clergyman  does  not  care 
for  them — he  has  a  sea-sick  imagination  that 
cannot  cross  channel.  What  is  it  to  him,  if 
the  angels  of  Assisi  fade  from  its  vaults,  or 
the  queens  and  kings  of  Chartres  fall  from 
their  pedestals  ?     They  are  not  in  his  parish. 

87.  "  What  ! "  you  will  say,  "  are  we  not 
to  produce  any  new  art,  nor  take  care  of 
our  parish  churches  ?  "  No,  certainly  not,  until 
}^ou  have  taken  proper  care  of  the  art  you 
have    got  already,  and    of  the   best  churches 


II.     ACCUMULATION    AND    DISTRIBUTION.      103 

out  of  the  parish.  Your  first  and  proper 
standing  is  not  as  churchwardens  and  parish 
overseers,  in  an  English  county,  but  as  mem- 
bers of  the  great  Christian  community  of 
Europe.  And  as  members  of  that  commu- 
nity (in  which  alone,  observe,  pure  and  pre- 
cious ancient  art  exists,  for  there  is  none 
in  America,  none  in  Asia,  none  in  Africa), 
you  conduct  yourselves  precisely  as  a  manu- 
facturer would,  who  attended  to  his  looms, 
but  left  his  warehouse  without  a  roof.  The 
rain  floods  your  warehouse,  the  rats  frolic  in 
it,  the  spiders  spin  in  it,  the  choughs  build  in 
it,  the  wall-plague  frets  and  festers  in  it ;  and 
still  you  keep  weave,  weave,  weaving  at  your 
wretched  webs,  and  thinking  you  are  growing 
rich,  while  more  is  gnawed  out  of  your  ware- 
house in  an  hour  than  you  can  weave  in  a 
twelvemonth. 

88.  Even  this  similitude  is  not  absurd 
enough  to  set  us  rightly  forth.  The  weaver 
would,  or  might,  at  least,  hope  that  his  new 
woof  was  as  stout  as  the  old  ones,  and  that, 
therefore,  in  spite  of  rain  and  ravage,  he  would 
have  something  to  wrap  himself  in  when  he 
needed  it.     But  our  wTebs  rot  as  we  spin.     The 


104  A   J°Y    FOR    EVER. 

very  fact  that  we  despise  the  great  art  of  the 
past  shows  that  we  cannot  produce  great  art 
now.  If  we  could  do  it,  we  should  love  it 
when  we  saw  it  done — if  we  really  cared  for 
it,  we  should  recognize  it  and  keep  it ;  but 
we  don't  care  for  it.  It  is  not  art  that  we 
want;  it  is  amusement,  gratification  of  pride, 
present  gain — anything  in  the  world  but  art : 
let  it  rot,  we  shall  always  have  enough  to  talk 
about  and  hang  over  our  sideboards. 

89.  You  will  (I  hope)  finally  ask  me  what 
is  the  outcome  of  all  this,  practicable  to- 
morrow morning  by  us  who  are  sitting  here  ? 
These  are  the  main  practical  outcomes  of  it  : 
In  the  first  place,  don't  grumble  when  you  hear 
of  a  new  picture  being  bought  by  Government 
at  a  large  price.  There  are  many  pictures  in 
Europe  now  in  danger  of  destruction  which 
are,  in  the  true  sense  of  the  word,  priceless  ; 
the  proper  price  is  simply  that  which  it  is 
necessary  to  give  to  get  and  to  save  them. 
If  you  can  get  them  for  fifty  pounds,  do;  if 
not  for  less  than  a  hundred,  do ;  if  not  for 
less  than  five  thousand,  do ;  if  not  for  less 
than  twenty  thousand,  do ;  never  mind  being 
imposed    upon  :    there    is    nothing    disgraceful 


II.     ACCUMULATION    AND    DISTRIBUTION.     105 

in  being  imposed  upon ;  the  only  disgrace  is  in 
imposing;  and  you  can't  in  general  get  any- 
thing much  worth  having,  in  the  way  of  Con- 
tinental art,  but  it  must  be  with  the  help  or 
connivance  of  numbers  of  people  who,  indeed, 
ought  to  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  mat- 
ter, but  who  practically  have,  and  always  will 
have,  everything  to  do  with  it ;  and  if  you 
don't  choose  to  submit  to  be  cheated  by  them 
out  of  a  ducat  here  and  a  zecchin  there,  you 
will  be  cheated  by  them  out  of  your  picture ; 
and  whether  you  are  most  imposed  upon  in 
losing  that,  or  the  zecehins,  I  think  I  may 
leave  you  to  judge;  though  I  know  there  are 
many  political  economists,  who  would  rather 
leave  a  bag  of  gold  on  a  garret-table,  than 
give  a  porter  sixpence  extra  to  carry  it  down- 
stairs. 

That,  then,  is  the  first  practical  outcome  of 
the  matter.  Never  grumble,  but  be  glad  when 
you  hear  of  a  new  picture  being  bought  at  a 
large  price.  In  the  long  run,  the  dearest  pic- 
tures are  always  the  best  bargains ;  and,  I 
repeat,  (for  else  you  might  think  I  said  it  in 
mere  hurry  of  talk,  and  not  deliberately,)  there 
are    some    pictures    which    are    without    price. 


io6  "a  joy  for  ever." 

You  should  stand,  nationally,  at  the  edge  of 
Dover  cliffs — Shakespeare's — and  wave  blank 
cheques  in  the  eyes  of  the  nations  on  the  other 
side  of  the  sea,  freely  offered,  for  such  and 
such  canvases  of  theirs. 

90.  Then  the  next  practical  outcome  of  it 
is — Never  buy  a  copy  of  a  picture,  under  any 
circumstances  whatever.  All  copies  are  bad ; 
because  no  painter  who  is  worth  a  straw  ever 
zvill  copy.  He  will  make  a  study  of  a  picture 
he  likes,  for  his  own  use,  in  his  own  way ;  but 
he  won't  and  can't  copy.  Whenever  you  Duy 
a  copy,  you  buy  so  much  misunderstanding  of 
the  original,  and  encourage  a  dull  person  in 
following  a  business  he  is  not  fit  for,  besides 
increasing  ultimately  chances  of  mistake  and 
imposture,  and  farthering,  as  directly  as  money 
can  farther,  the  cause  of  ignorance  in  all  direc- 
tions. You  may,  in  fact,  consider  yourself  as 
having  purchased  a  certain  quantity  of  mis- 
takes ;  and,  according  to  your  power,  being 
engaged  in  disseminating  them. 

91.  I  do  not  mean,  however,  that  copies 
should  never  be  made.  A  certain  number  of 
dull  persons  should  always  be  employed  by 
a    Government    in    making  the  most   accurate 


II.     ACCUMULATION     a\D    DISTRIBUTION.      107 

copies  possible  of  all  good  pictures ;  these 
copies,  though  artistically  valueless,  would  be 
historically  and  documentarily  valuable,  in  the 
event  of  the  destruction  of  the  original  picture. 
The  studies  also  made  by  great  artists  for  their 
own  use,  should  be  sought  after  with  the 
greatest  eagerness  ;  they  are  often  to  be  bought 
cheap  ;  and  in  connection  with  the  mechanical 
copies,  would  become  very  precious  :  tracings 
from  frescoes  and  other  large  works  are  also  of 
great  value  ;  for  though  a  tracing  is  liable  to 
just  as  many  mistakes  as  a  copy,  the  mis- 
takes in  a  tracing  are  of  one  kind  only,  which 
may  be  allowed  for,  but  the  mistakes  of  a 
common  copyist  are  of  all  conceivable  kinds  : 
finally,  engravings,  in  so  far  as  they  convey 
certain  facts  about  the  pictures,  without  pre- 
tending adequately  to  represent  or  give  an  idea 
of  the  pictures,  are  often  serviceable  and  valu- 
able. I  can't,  of  course,  enter  into  details  in 
these  matters  just  now  ;  only  this  main  piece 
of  advice  I  can  safely  give  you — never  to  buy 
copies  of  pictures  (for  your  private  possession) 
which  pretend  to  give  a  facsimile  that  shall  be 
in  any  wise  representative  of,  or  equal  to, 
the  original.     Whenever  you   do  so,  you   are 


IOS  "  A    JOY    FOR    EVER." 

only  lowering  your  taste,  and  wasting  your 
money.  And  if  you  are  generous  and  wise, 
you  will  be  ready  rather  to  subscribe  as  much 
as  you  would  have  given  for  a  copy  of  a  great 
picture  towards  its  purchase,  or  the  purchase 
of  some  other  like  it,  by  the  nation.  There 
ought  to  be  a  great  National  Society  instituted 
for  the  purchase  of  pictures  ;  presenting  them 
to  the  various  galleries  in  our  great  cities,  and 
watching  there  over  their  safety  :  but  in  the 
meantime,  you  can  always  act  safely  and  bene- 
ficially by  merely  allowing  your  artist  friends 
to  buy  pictures  for  you,  when  they  see  good 
ones.  Never  buy  for  yourselves,  nor  go  to  the 
foreign  dealers  ;  but  let  any  painter  whom  you 
know  be  entrusted,  when  he  finds  a  neglected 
old  picture  in  an  old  house,  to  try  if  he  cannot 
get  it  for  you  ;  then,  if  you  like  it,  keep  it ;  if 
not,  send  it  to  the  hammer,  and  you  will  find 
that  you  do  not  lose  money  on  pictures  so 
purchased. 

92.  And  the  third  and  chief  practical  out- 
come of  the  matter  is  this  general  one : 
Wherever  you  go,  whatever  }'ou  do,  act 
more  for  preservation  and  less  for  production. 
I  assure  you,  the  world  is,  generally  speaking, 


II.     ACCUMULATION    AND    DISTRIBUTION.        109 

in  calamitous  disorder,  and  just  because  you 
have  managed  to  thrust  some  of  the  lumber 
aside,  and  get  an  available  corner  for  your- 
selves,  you  think  you  should  do  nothing  but 
sit  spinning  in  it  all  day  long — while,  as  house- 
holders and  economists,  your  first  thought  and 
effort  should  be,  to  set  things  more  square 
all  about  you.  Try  to  set  the  ground  floors  in 
order,  and  get  the  rottenness  out  of  your  grana- 
ries.     Then  sit  and  spin,  but  not  till  then. 

93.  IV.  Distribution. — And  now,  lastly,  we 
come  to  the  fourth  great  head  of  our  inquiry, 
the  question  of  the  wise  distribution  of  the  art 
we  have  gathered  and  preserved.  It  must  be 
evident  to  us,  at  a  moment's  thought,  that  the 
way  in  which  works  of  art  are  on  the  whole 
most  useful  to  the  nation  to  which  they  belong, 
must  be  by  their  collection  in  public  galleries, 
supposing  those  galleries  properly  managed. 
But  there  is  one  disadvantage  attached  neces- 
sarily to  gallery  exhibition-  —namely,  the  extent 
of  mischief  which  may  be  done  by  one  foolish 
curator.  As  long  as  the  pictures  which  form 
the  national  wealth  are  disposed  in  private 
collections,  the  chance  is  always  that  the  people 


I IO  A    JOY    FOR    EVER. 

who  buy  them  will  be  just  the  people  who  are 
fond  of  them  ;  and  that  the  sense  of  exchange- 
able value  in  the  commodity  they  possess,  will 
induce  them,  even  if  they  do  not  esteem  it 
themselves,  to  take  such  care  of  it  as  will  pre- 
serve its  value  undiminished.  At  all  events,  so 
long  as  works  of  art  are  scattered  through  the 
nation,  no  universal  destruction  of  them  is 
possible  ;  a  certain  average  only  are  lost  by 
accidents  from  time  to  time.  But  when  they 
are  once  collected  in  a  large  public  gallery,  if 
the  appointment  of  curator  becomes  in  any  way 
a  matter  of  formality,  or  the  post  is  so  lucrative 
as  to  be  disputed  by  place-hunters,  let  but  one 
foolish  or  careless  person  get  possession  of 
it,  and  perhaps  you  may  have  all  your  fine 
pictures  repainted,  and  the  national  property 
destroyed,  in  a  month.  That  is  actually  the 
case  at  this  moment,  in  several  great  foreign 
galleries.  They  are  the  places  of  execution  of 
pictures  :  over  their  doors  you  only  want  the 
Dantesque  inscription,  "  Lasciate  ogni  sper- 
anza,   voi  che  entrate." 

94.  Supposing,  however,  this  danger  pro- 
perly guarded  against,  as  it  would  be  always 
by  a  nation  which   either  knew  the  value,  or 


II.    ACCUMULATION    AND    DISTRIBUTION.        Ill 

understood  the  meaning,  of  painting,*  arrange- 
ment in  a  public  gallery  is  the  safest,  as  well 
as  the  most  serviceable,  method  of  exhibiting 
pictures  ;  and  it  is  the  only  mode  in  which  their 
historical  value  can  be  brought  out,  and  their 
historical  meaning  made  clear.  But  great  good 
is  also  to  be  done  by  encouraging  the  private 
possession  of  pictures ;  partly  as  a  means  of 
study,  (much  more  being  always  discovered 
in  any  work  of  art  by  a  person  who  has  it  per- 
petually near  him  than  by  one  who  only  sees 
it  from  time  to  time,)  and  also  as  a  means  of  re- 
fining the  habits  and  touching  the  hearts  of  the 
masses  of  the  nation  in  their  domestic  life. 

95.  For  these  last  purposes,  the  most  ser- 
viceable art  is  the  living  art  of  the  time ;  the 
particular  tastes  of  the  people  will  be  best 
met,  and  their  particular  ignorances  best  cor- 
rected, by  painters  labouring  in  the  midst  of 
them,  more  or  less  guided  to  the  knowledge 
of  what  is  wanted  by  the  degree  of  sympathy 
with  which  their  work  is  received.     So   then, 


*  It  would  be  a  great  point  gained  towards  the  preserva- 
tion of  pictures  if  it  were  made  a  rule  that  at  every  operation 
they  underwent,  the  exact  spots  in  which  they  have  been 
repainted  should  be  recorded  in  writing. 


112  "a  joy  for  ever. 

generally,  it  should  be  the  object  of  govern- 
ment, and  of  all  patrons  of  art,  to  collect,  as 
far  as  may -be,  the  works  of  dead  masters  in 
public  galleries,  arranging  them  so  as  to  illus- 
trate the  history  of  nations,  and  the  progress 
and  influence  of  their  arts ;  and  to  encourage 
the  private  possession  of  the  works  of  living 
masters.  And  the  first  and  best  way  in  which 
to  encourage  such  private  possession  is,  of 
course,  to  keep  down  the  prices  of  them  as 
far  as  you  can. 

I  hope  there  are  not  a  great  many  painters 
in  the  room ;  if  there  are,  I  entreat  their  pa- 
tience for  the  next  quarter  of  an  hour  :  if  they 
will  bear  with  me  for  so  long,  I  hope  they  will 
not,  finally,  be  offended  by  what  I  am  going 
to  say. 

96.  I  repeat,  trusting  to  their  indulgence  in 
the  interim,  that  the  first  object  of  our  national 
economy,  as  respects  the  distribution  of  modern 
art,  should  be  steadily  and  rationally  to  limit 
its  prices,  since  by  doing  so,  you  will  produce 
two  effects  :  you  will  make  the  painters  pro- 
duce more  pictures,  two  or  three  instead  of 
one,  if  they  wish  to  make  money ;  and  you 
will,  by  bringing  good  pictures  within  the  reach 


II.     ACCUMULATION    AND    DISTRIBUTION.      I  1 3 

of  people  of  moderate  income,  excite  the  gen- 
eral interest  of  the  nation  in  them,  increase 
a  thousandfold  the  demand  for  the  commodity, 
and  therefore  its  wholesome  and  natural  pro- 
duction. 

97.  I  know  how  many  objections  must  arise 
in  your  minds  at  this  moment  to  what  I  say  ; 
but  you  must  be  aware  that  it  is  not  possible 
for  me  in  an  hour  to  explain  all  the  moral 
and  commercial  bearings  of  such  a  principle  as 
this.  Only,  believe  me,  I  do  not  speak  lightly  ; 
I  think  I  have  considered  all  the  objections 
which  could  be  rationally  brought  forward, 
though  I  have  time  at  present  only  to  glance 
at  the  main  one — namely,  the  idea  that  the 
high  prices  paid  for  modern  pictures  are  either 
honourable,  or  serviceable,  to  the  painter.  So 
far  from  this  being  so,  I  believe  one  of  the 
principal  obstacles  to  the  progress  of  modern 
art  to  be  the  high  prices  given  for  good  mod- 
ern pictures.  For  observe  first  the  action  of 
this  high  remuneration  on  the  artist's  mind.  If 
he  "gets  on,"  as  it  is  called,  catches  the  eye  of 
the  public,  and  especially  of  the  public  of  the 
upper  classes,  there  is  hardly  any  limit  to  the 
fortune  he  may  acquire ;  so  that,  in  his  early 


114  "A    J°Y    F0R    EVER. 

years,  his  mind  is  naturally  led  to  dwell  on 
this  worldly  and  wealthy  eminence  as  the  main 
thing  to  be  reached  by  his  art ;  if  he  finds  that 
he  is  not  gradually  rising  towards  it,  he  thinks 
there  is  something  wrong  in  his  work  ;  or,  if 
he  is  too  proud  to  think  that,  still  the  bribe  of 
wealth  and  honour  warps  him  from  his  honest 
labour  into  efforts  to  attract  attention ;  and  he 
gradually  loses  both  his  power  of  mind  and 
his  rectitude  of  purpose.  This,  according  to 
the  degree  of  avarice  or  ambition  which  exists 
in  any  painter's  mind,  is  the  necessary  influ- 
ence upon  him  of  the  hope  of  great  wealth  and 
reputation.  But  the  harm  is  still  greater,  in 
so  far  as  the  possibility  of  attaining  fortune  of 
this  kind  tempts  people  continually  to  become 
painters  who  have  no  real  gift  for  the  work  ; 
and  on  whom  these  motives  of  mere  worldly 
interest  have  exclusive  influence  ; — men  who 
torment  and  abuse  the  patient  workers,  eclipse 
or  thrust  aside  all  delicate  and  good  pictures  by 
their  own  gaudy  and  coarse  ones,  corrupt  the 
taste  of  the  public,  and  do  the  greatest  amount 
of  mischief  to  the  schools  of  art  in  their  day 
which  it  is  possible  for  their  capacities  to 
effect ;  and    it    is  quite   wonderful   how   much 


II.     ACCUMULATION    AND    DISTRIBUTION.      I  1 5 

mischief  may  be  done  even  by  small  capa- 
city. If  you  could  by  any  means  succeed  in 
keeping  the  prices  of  pictures  down,  you  would 
throw  all  these  disturbers  out  of  the  way  at 
once. 

98.  You  may  perhaps  think  that  this  severe 
treatment  would  do  more  harm  than  good,  by 
withdrawing  the  wholesome  element  of  emula- 
tion, and  giving  no  stimulus  to  exertion  ;  but 
1  am  sorry  to  say  that  artists  will  always  be 
sufficiently  jealous  of  one  another,  whether  you 
pay  them  large  or  low  prices ;  and  as  for 
stimulus  to  exertion,  believe  me,  no  good  work 
in  this  world  was  ever  done  for  money,  nor 
while  the  slightest  thought  of  money  affected 
the  painter's  mind.  Whatever  idea  of  pecu- 
niary value  enters  into  his  thoughts  as  he 
works,  will,  in  proportion  to  the  distinctness 
of  its  presence,  shorten  his  power.  A  real 
painter  will  work  for  you  exquisitely,  if  you 
give  him,  as  I  told  you  a  little  while  ago,  bread 
and  water  and  salt ;  and  a  bad  painter  will 
work  badly  and  hastily,  though  you  give  him  a 
palace  to  live  in,  and  a  princedom  to  live  upon. 
Turner  got,  in  his  earlier  years,  half  a  crown  a 
day  and  his  supper  (not  bad  pay,  neither)  ;  and 


Il6  "a  joy  for  ever.'' 

he  learned  to  paint  upon  that.  And  I  believe 
that  there  is  no  chance  of  art's  truly  flourish- 
ing in  any  country,  until  you  make  it  a  simple 
and  plain  business,  providing  its  masters  with 
an  easy  competence,  but  rarely  with  anything 
more.  And  I  say  this,  not  because  I  despise 
the  great  painter,  but  because  I  honour  him  ; 
and  I  should  no  more  think  of  adding  to  his  re- 
spectability or  happiness  by  giving  him  riches, 
than,  if  Shakespeare  or  Milton  were  alive,  I 
should  think  we  added  to  their  respectability, 
or  were  likely  to  get  better  work  from  them, 
by  making  them  millionaires. 

99.  But,  observe,  it  is  not  only  the  painter 
himself  whom  you  injure,  by  giving  him  too 
high  prices  ;  you  injure  all  the  inferior  painters 
of  the  day.  If  they  are  modest,  they  will  be 
discouraged  and  depressed  by  the  feeling  that 
their  doings  are  worth  so  little,  comparatively, 
in  your  eyes  ; — if  proud,  all  their  worst  pas- 
sions will  be  aroused,  and  the  insult  or  oppro- 
brium which  they  will  try  to  cast  on  their 
successful  rival  will  not  only  afflict  and  wound 
him,  but  at  last  sour  and  harden  him  :  he  can- 
not pass  through  such  a  trial  without  grievous 
harm. 


II.     ACCUMULATION    AND    DISTRIBUTION.      117 

IOO.  That,  then,  is  the  effect  you  produce  on 
the  painter  of  mark,  and  on  the  inferior  ones 
of  his  own  standing.  But  you  do  worse  than 
this ;  you  deprive  yourselves,  by  what  you  give 
for  the  fashionable  picture,  of  the  power  of 
helping  the  younger  men  who  are  coming  for- 
ward. Be  it  admitted,  for  argument's  sake,  if 
you  are  not  convinced  by  what  I  have  said, 
that  you  do  no  harm  to  the  great  man  by  pay- 
ing him  well  ;  yet  certainly  you  do  him  no 
special  good.  His  reputation  is  established,  and 
his  fortune  made  ;  he  does  not  care  whether 
you  buy  or  not ;  he  thinks  he  is  rather  do- 
ing you  a  favour  than  otherwise  by  letting 
you  have  one  of  his  pictures  at  all.  All  the 
good  you  do  him  is  to  help  him  to  buy  a  new 
pair  of  carriage  horses ;  whereas,  with  that 
same  sum  which  thus  you  cast  away,  you 
might  have  relieved  the  hearts  and  preserved 
the  health  of  twenty  young  painters  ;  and  if, 
among  those  twenty,  you  but  chanced  on  one 
in  whom  a  true  latent  power  had  been  hin- 
dered by  his  poverty,  just  consider  what  a 
far-branching,  far-embracing  good  you  have 
wrought  with  that  lucky  expenditure  of  yours. 
I    say,    "  Consider    it,"    in   vain ;  you    cannot 


I  1 8  "a  joy  for  ever." 

consider  it,  for  you  cannot  conceive  the  sickness 
of  heart  with  which  a  young  painter  of  deep 
feeling  toils  through  his  first  obscurity; — his 
sense  of  the  strong  voice  within  him,  which 
you  will  not  hear  ;— his  vain,  fond,  wondering 
witness  to  the  things  you  will  not  see  ; — his 
far-away  perception  of  things  that  he  could 
accomplish  if  he  had  but  peace,  and  time,  all 
unapproachable  and  vanishing  from  him,  be- 
cause no  one  will  leave  him  peace  or  grant 
him  time  :  all  his  friends  falling  back  from  him  ; 
those  whom  he  would  most  reverently  obey 
rebuking  and  paralysing  him  ;  and,  last  and 
worst  of  all,  those  who  believe  in  him  the  most 
faithfully  suffering  by  him  the  most  bitterly  ; — 
the  wife's  eyes,  in  their  sweet  ambition,  shining 
brighter  as  the  cheek  wastes  away ;  and  the 
little  lips  at  his  side  parched  and  pale,  which 
one  day,  he  knows,  though  he  may  never  see 
it,  will  quiver  so  proudly  when  they  call  his 
name,  calling  him  "our  father."  You  deprive 
yourselves,  by  your  large  expenditure  for  pic- 
tures of  mark,  of  the  power  of  relieving  and 
redeeming  this  distress  ;  you  injure  the  painter 
whom  you  pay  so  largely ; — and  what,  after 
all,   have  you    done  for   yourselves  or  got  for 


II.      ACCUMULATION    AND    DISTRIBUTION.      119 

yourselves  ?  It  does  not  in  the  least  follow 
that  the  hurried  work  of  a  fashionable  painter 
will  contain  more  for  your  money  than  the 
quiet  work  of  some  unknown  man.  In  all 
probability,  you  will  find,  if  you  rashly  pur- 
chase what  is  popular  at  a  high  price,  that  you 
have  got  one  picture  you  don't  care  for,  for 
a  sum  which  would  have  bought  twenty  you 
would  have  delighted  in. 

10 1.  For  remember  alwa}-s,  that  the  price 
of  a  picture  by  a  living  artist  never  repre- 
sents, never  can  represent,  the  quantity  of 
labour  or  value  in  it.  Its  price  represents,  for 
the  most  part,  the  degree  of  desire  which  the 
rich  people  of  the  country  have  to  possess  it. 
Once  get  the  wealthy  classes  to  imagine  that 
the  possession  of  pictures  by  a  given  artist  adds 
to  their  "  gentility,"  and  there  is  no  price  which 
his  work  may  not  immediately  reach,  and  for 
years  maintain  ;  and  in  buying  at  that  price, 
you  are  not  getting  value  for  your  money, 
but  merely  disputing  for  victory  in  a  contest 
of  ostentation.  And  it  is  hardly  possible  to 
spend  your  money  in  a  worse  or  more  waste- 
ful way ;  for  though  you  may  not  be  doing  it 
for    ostentation    yourself,    you    are,     by    your 


120  "a  joy  for  lver. 

pertinacity,  nourishing  the  ostentation  of  others ; 
you  meet  them  in  their  game  of  wealth,  and 
continue  it  for  them  ;  if  they  had  not  found  an 
opposite  player,  the  game  would  have  been 
done ;  for  a  proud  man  can  find  no  enjoyment 
in  possessing  himself  of  what  nobody  disputes 
with  him.  So  that  by  every  farthing  you  give 
for  a  picture  beyond  its  fair  price — that  is  to 
say,  the  price  which  will  pay  the  painter  for 
his  time — you  are  not  only  cheating  yourself 
and  buying  vanity,  but  you  are  stimulating 
the  vanity  of  others  ;  paying,  literally,  for  the 
cultivation  of  pride.  You  may  consider  every 
pound  that  you  spend  above  the  just  price  of 
a  work  of  art,  as  an  investment  in  a  cargo  of 
mental  quick-lime  or  guano,  which,  being  laid 
on  the  fields  of  human  nature,  is  to  grow  a 
harvest  of  pride.  You  are  in  fact  ploughing 
and  harrowing,  in  a  most  valuable  part  of  your 
land,  in  order  to  reap  the  whirlwind ;  you  are 
setting  your  hand  stoutly  to  Job's  agriculture 
— "  Let  thistles  grow  instead  of  wheat,  and 
cockle  instead  of  barley." 

1 02.  Well,  but  you  will  say,  there  is  one  ad- 
vantage in  high  prices,  which  more  than  coun- 
terbalances all  this   mischief,  namely,  that  by 


II.     ACCUMULATION    AND    DISTRIBUTION.      121 

great  reward  we  both  urge  and  enable  a  painter 
to  produce  rather  one  perfect  picture  than  many 
inferior  ones  :  and  one  perfect  picture  (so  you 
tell  us,  and  we  believe  it)  is  worth  a  great 
number  of  inferior  ones. 

It  is  so  ;  but  you  cannot  get  it  by  paying 
for  it.  A  great  work  is  only  done  when  (he 
painter  gets  into  the  humour  for  it,  likes  his 
subject,  and  determines  to  paint  it  as  well  as 
he  can,  whether  he  is  paid  for  it  or  not  ;  but 
bad  work,  and  generally  the  worst  sort  of  bad 
work,  is  done  when  he  is  trying  to  produce 
a  showy  picture,  or  one  that  shall  appear  to 
have  as  much  labour  in  it  as  shall  be  worth 
a  high  price.* 

103.  There  is,  however,  another  point,  and 
a  still  more  important  one,  bearing  on  this 
matter  of  purchase,  than  the  keeping  down  of 

*  When  this  lecture  was  delivered,  I  gave  here  some  data 
for  approximate  estimates  of  the  average  value  of  good 
modern  pictures  of  different  classes  ;  but  the  subject  is  too 
complicated  to  be  adequately  treated  in  writing,  without 
introducing  more  detail  than  the  reader  will -have  patience 
for.  But  I  may  state,  roughly,  that  prices  above  a  hun- 
dred guineas  are  in  general  extravagant  for  water-colours, 
and  above  five  hundred  for  oils.  An  artist  almost  always 
does  wrong  who  puis  more  work  than  these  prices  will  re- 
munerate him  for  into  any  single  canvas  — his  talent  would 


122  A    JOY    FOR    EVER. 

prices  to  a  rational  standard.  And  that  is,  that 
you  pay  your  prices  into  the  hands  of  living 
men,  and  do  not  pour  them  into  coffins. 

For  observe  that,  as  we  arrange  our  pay- 
ment of  pictures  at  present,  no  artist's  work  is 
worth  half  its  proper  value  while  he  is  alive. 
The  moment  he  dies,  his  pictures,  if  they  are 
good,  reach  double  their  former  value ;  but, 
that  rise  of  price  represents  simply  a  profit 
made  by  the  intelligent  dealer  or  purchaser  on 
his  past  purchases.  So  that  the  real  facts 
of  the  matter  are,  that  the  British  public, 
spending  a  certain  sum  annually  in  art,  deter- 
mines that,  of  every  thousand  it  pays,  only 
five  hundred  shall  go  to  the  painter,  or  shal} 
be  at  all  concerned  in  the  production  of  art ; 
and  that  the  other  five  hundred  shall  be  paid 
merely  as  a  testimonial  to  the  intelligent  dealer, 
who    knew  what    to    buy.     Now,   testimonials 

be  better  employed  in  painting  two  pictures  than  one  so 
elaborate.  The  water-colour  painters  also  are  getting  into 
the  habit  of  making  their  drawings  too  large,  and  in  a 
measure  attaching  their  price  rather  to  breadth  and  extent 
of  touch  than  to  thoughtful  labour.  Of  course  marked 
exceptions  occur  here  and  there,  as  in  the  case  of  John 
Lewis,  whose  drawings  are  wrought  with  unfailing  precision 
throughout,  whatever  their  scale.  Hardly  any  price  can 
be  remunerative  for  such  work. 


II.     ACCUMULATION    AND    DISTRIBUTION.     1 23 

are  very  pretty  and  proper  things,  within  due 
limits  ;  but  testimonial  to  the  amount  of  a 
hundred  per  cent,  on  the  total  expenditure  is 
not  good  political  economy.  Do  not,  there- 
fore, in  general,  unless  you  see  it  to  be  neces- 
sary for  its  preservation,  buy  the  picture  of 
a  dead  artist.  If  you  fear  that  it  may  be  ex- 
posed to  contempt  or  neglect,  buy  it ;  its  price 
will  then,  probably,  not  be  high :  if  you  want 
to  put  it  into  a  public  gallery,  buy  it ;  you 
are  sure,  then,  that  you  do  not  spend  your 
money  selfishly  :  or,  if  you  loved  the  man's 
work  while  he  was  alive,  and  bought  it  then, 
buy  it  also  now,  if  you  can  see  no  living 
work  equal  to  it.  But  if  you  did  not  buy 
it  while  the  man  was  living,  never  buy  it 
after  he  is  dead  :  you  are  then  doing  no  good 
to  him,  and  you  are  doing  some  shame  to 
yourself.  Lock  around  you  for  pictures  that 
you  really  like,  and  in  buying  which  you  can 
help  some  genius  yet  unperished — that  is  the 
best  atonement  you  can  make  to  the  one  you 
have  neglected — and  give  to  the  living  and 
struggling  painter  at  once  wages,  and  testi- 
monial. 

104.  So  far  then  of  the  motives  which  should 


124  "A   J°Y    FOR    EVER. 

induce  us  to  keep  down  the  prices  of  modern 
art,  and  thus  render  it,  as  a  private  possession, 
attainable  by  greater  numbers  of  people  than 
at  present.  But  we  should  strive  to  render  it 
accessible  to  them  in  other  ways  also — chiefly 
by  the  permanent  decoration  of  public  build- 
ings ;  and  it  is  in  this  field  that  I  think  we  may 
look  for  the  profitable  means  of  providing  that 
constant  employment  for  young  painters  of 
which  we  were  speaking  last  evening. 

The  first  and  most  important  kind  of  public 
buildings  which  we  are  always  sure  to  want, 
are  schools  :  and  I  would  ask  you  to  consider 
very  carefully,  whether  we  may  not  wisely  in- 
troduce some  great  changes  in  the  way  of  school 
decoration.  Hitherto,  as  far  as  I  know,  it  has 
either  been  so  difficult  to  give  all  the  education 
we  wanted  to  our  lads,  that  we  have  been 
obliged  to  do  it,  if  at  all,  with  cheap  furniture 
and  bare  walls  ;  or  else  we  have  considered  that 
cheap  furniture  and  bare  walls  are  a  proper 
part  of  the  means  of  education  ;  and  supposed 
that  boys  learned  best  when  they  sat  on  hard 
forms,  and  had  nothing  but  blank  plaster  about 
and  above  them  whereupon  to  employ  their 
spare  attention  ;  also,  that  it  was  as  well  they 


II.     ACCUMULATION    AND    DISTRIBUTION.     125 

should  be  accustomed  to  rough  and  ugly  con- 
ditions of  things,  partly  by  way  of  preparing 
them  for  the  hardships  of  life,  and  partly  that 
there  might  be  the  least  possible  damage  done 
to  floors  and  forms,  in  the  event  of  their  be- 
coming, during  the  master's  absence,  the  fields 
or  instruments  of  battle.  All  this  is  so  far 
well  and  necessary,  as  it  relates  to  the  training 
of  country  lads,  and  the  first  training  of  boys 
in  general.  But  there  certainly  comes  a  period 
in  the  life  of  a  well-educated  youth,  in  which 
one  of  the  principal  elements  of  his  education 
is,  or  ought  to  be,  to  give  him  refinement  of 
habits  ;  and  not  only  to  teach  him  the  strong 
exercises  of  which  his  frame  is  capable,  but 
also  to  increase  his  bodily  sensibility  and  re- 
finement, and  show  him  such  small  matters 
as  the  way  of  handling  things  properly,  and 
treating  them  considerately. 

105.  Not  only  so ;  but  I  believe  the  notion 
of  fixing  the  attention  by  keeping  the  room 
empty,  is  a  wholly  mistaken  one :  I  think  it  is 
just  in  the  emptiest  room  that  the  mind  wanders 
most ;  for  it  gets  restless,  like  a  bird,  for  want 
of  a  perch,  and  casts  about  for  any  possible 
means   of  getting  out    and  away.     And  even 


126  "a  joy  for  ever." 

if  it  be  fixed,  by  an  effort,  on  the  business  in 
hand,  that  business  becomes  itself  repulsive, 
more  than  it  need  be,  by  the  vileness  of  its 
associations ;  and  many  a  study  appears  dull 
or  painful  to  a  boy,  when  it  is  pursued  on  a 
blotted  deal  desk,  under  a  wall  with  nothing  on 
it  but  scratches  and  pegs,  which  would  have 
been  pursued  pleasantly  enough  in  a  curtained 
corner  of  his  father's  library,  or  at  the  lattice 
window  of  his  cottage.  Now,  my  own  belief 
is,  that  the  best  study  of  all  is  the  most  beauti- 
ful ;  and  that  a  quiet  glade  of  forest,  or  the 
nook  of  a  lake  shore,  are  worth  all  the  school- 
rooms in  Christendom,  when  once  you  are  past 
the  multiplication  table ;  but  be  that  as  it  may, 
there  is  no  question  at  all  but  that  a  time 
ought  to  come  in  the  life  of  a  well-trained 
youth,  when  he  can  sit  at  a  writing-table 
without  wanting  to  throw  the  inkstand  at  his 
neighbour  ;  and  when  also  he  will  feel  more 
capable  of  certain  efforts  of  mind  with  beauti- 
ful and  refined  forms  about  him  than  with 
ugly  ones.  When  that  time  comes,  he  ought 
to  be  advanced  into  the  decorated  schools ;  and 
this  advance  ought  to  be  one  of  the  important 
and  honourable  epochs  of  his  life. 


II.     ACCUMULATION    AND    DISTRIBUTION.    1 27 

106.  I  have  not  time,  however,  to  insist  on 
the  mere  serviceableness  to  our  youth  of  re- 
fined architectural  decoration,  as  such ;  for  I 
want  you  to  consider  the  probable  influence  of 
the  particular  kind  of  decoration  which  I  wish 
you  to  get  for  them,  namely,  historical  painting. 
You  know  we  have  hitherto  been  in  the  habit 
of  conveying  all  our  historical  knowledge,  such 
as  it  is,  by  the  ear  only,  never  by  the  e}re  ;  all 
our  notion  of  things  being  ostensibly  derived 
from  verbal  description,  not  from  sight.  Now, 
I  have  no  doubt  that,  as  we  grow  gradually 
wiser — and  we  are  doing  so  every  day — we 
shall  discover  at  last  that  the  eye  is  a  nobler 
organ  than  the  ear ;  and  that  through  the  eye 
we  must,  in  reality,  obtain,  or  put  into  form, 
nearly  all  the  useful  information  we  are  to 
have  about  this  world.  Even  as  the  matter 
stands,  you  will  find  that  the  knowledge  which 
a  boy  is  supposed  to  receive  from  verbal  de- 
scription is  only  available  to  him  so  far  as 
in  any  underhand  way  he  gets  a  sight  of 
the  thing  you  are  talking  about.  I  remember 
well  that,  for  many  years  of  my  life,  the  only 
notion  1  had  of  the  look  of  a  Greek  knight 
was    complicated     between    recollection    of    a 


128  ''A    JOY    FOR    EVER. 

small  engraving  in  my  pocket  Pope's  Homer, 
and  reverent  study  of  the  Horse  Guards.  And 
though  I  believe  that  most  boys  collect  their 
ideas  from  more  varied  sources  and  arrange 
them  more  carefully  than  I  did  ;  still,  what- 
ever sources  they  seek  must  always  be  ocular : 
if  they  are  clever  boys,  they  will  go  and  look 
at  the  Greek  vases  and  sculptures  in  the 
British  Museum,  and  at  the  weapons  in  our 
armouries — they  will  see  what  real  armour  is 
like  in  lustre,  and  what  Greek  armour  was  like 
in  form,  and  so  put  a  fairly  true  image  to- 
gether, but  still  not,  in  ordinary  cases,  a  very 
living  or  interesting  one. 

107.  Now,  the  use  of  your  decorative  paint- 
ing would  be,  in  myriads  of  ways,  to  animate 
their  history  for  them,  and  to  put  the  living 
aspect  of  past  things  before  their  eyes  as  faith- 
fully as  intelligent  invention  can  ;  so  that  the 
master  shall  have  nothing  to  do  but  once  to 
point  to  the  schoolroom  walls,  and  for  ever 
afterwards  the  meaning  of  any  word  would  be 
fixed  in  a  boy's  mind  in  the  best  possible  way. 
Is  it  a  question  of  classical  dress — what  a  tunic 
was  like,  or  a  chlamys,  or  a  peplus  ?  At  this 
day,  you  have  to  point  to  some  vile  woodcut, 


II.     ACCUMULATION    AND    DISTRIBUTION.        129 

in  the  middle  of  a  dictionary  page,  represent- 
ing the  thing  hung  upon  a  stick ;  but  then, 
you  would  point  to  a  hundred  figures,  wearing 
the  actual  dress,  in  its  fiery  colours,  in  all  ac- 
tions of  various  stateliness  or  strength  ;  you 
would  understand  at  once  how  it  fell  round 
the  people's  limbs  as  they  stood,  how  it  drifted 
from  their  shoulders  as  they  went,  how  it 
veiled  their  faces  as  they  wept,  how  it  covered 
their  heads  in  the  day  of  battle.  Noiv,  if  you 
want  to  see  what  a  weapon  is  like,  you  refer, 
in  like  manner,  to  a  numbered  page,  in  which 
there  are  spear-heads  in  rows,  and  sword- 
hilts  in  symmetrical  groups  ;  and  gradually  the 
boy  gets  a  dim  mathematical  notion  how  one 
scimitar  is  hooked  to  the  right  and  another  to 
the  left,  and  one  javelin  has  a  knob  to  it  and 
another  none  :  while  one  glance  at  your  good 
picture  would  show  him,  —and  the  first  rainy 
afternoon  in  the  schoolroom  would  for  ever  fix 
in  his  mind, — the  look  of  the  sword  and  spear 
as  they  fell  or  flew  ;  and  how  they  pierced,  or 
bent,  or  shattered — how  men  wielded  them,  and 
how  men  died  by  them. 

1 08.  But  far  more  than  all  this,  is  it  a  ques- 
tion not  of  clothes  or  weapon?,  but  of  men  ? 

9 


1 3(T  "a  joy  for  ever. 

how  can  we  sufficiently  estimate  the  effect  on 
the  mind  of  a  noble  youth,  at  the  time  when 
the  world  opens  to  him,  of  having  faithful 
and  touching  representations  put  before  him 
of  the  acts  and  presences  of  great  men — 
how  many  a  resolution,  which  would  alter  and 
exalt  the  whole  course  of  his  after-life,  might 
be  formed,  when  in  some  dreamy  twilight  he 
met,  through  his  own  tears,  the  fixed  eyes  of 
those  shadows  of  the  great  dead,  unescapable 
and  calm,  piercing  to  his  soul ;  or  fancied  that 
their  lips  moved  in  dread  reproof  or  soundless 
exhortation  ?  And  if  but  for  one  out  of  many 
this  were  true  -if  yet,  in  a  few,  you  could  be 
sure  that  such  influence  had  indeed  changed 
their  thoughts  and  destinies,  and  turned  the 
eager  and  reckless  youth,  who  would  have  cast 
away  his  energies  on  the  race-horse  or  the 
gambling-table,  to  that  noble  life-race,  that 
holy  life-hazard,  which  should  win  all  glory 
to  himself  and  all  good  to  his  country, — would 
not  that,  to  some  purpose,  be  "polilical  eco- 
nomy of  art "  ? 

109.  And  observe,  there  could  be  no  mo- 
notony, no  exhaustibleness,  in  the  scenes 
required  to  be  thus  portrayed.     Even   if  there 


II.     ACCUMULATION    AND    DISTRIBUTION.        1 3 1 

were,  and  you  wanted  for  every  school  in  the 
kingdom,  one  death  of  Leonidas ;  one  battle 
of  Marathon  ;  one  death  of  Cleobis  and  Bito  ; 
there  need  not  therefore  be  more  monotony  in 
3'our  art  than  there  was  in  the  repetition 
of  a  given  cycle  of  subjects  by  the  religious 
painters  of  Italy.  But  we  ought  not  to  admit 
a  cycle  at  all.  For  though  we  had  as  many 
great  schools  as  we  have  great  cities  (one  day 
I  hope  we  shall  have),  centuries  of  paint- 
ing would  no*  exhaust,  in  all  the  number  of 
them,  the  noble  and  pathetic  subjects  which 
might  be  chosen  from  the  history  of  even  one 
noble  nation.  But,  beside  this,  you  will  not, 
in  a  little  while,  limit  your  youths'  studies  to 
so  narrow  fields  as  you  do  now.  There  will 
come  a  time — I  am  sure  of  it — when  it  will  be 
found  that  the  same  practical  results,  both  in 
mental  discipline  and  in  political  philosophy, 
are  to  be  attained  by  the  accurate  study  of 
mediaeval  and  modern  as  of  ancient  history  ; 
and  that  the  facts  of  mediaeval  and  modern 
history  are,  on  the  whole,  the  most  important 
to  us.  And  among  these  noble  groups  of 
constellated  schools  which  I  foresee  arising  in 
our  England,  I  foresee  also  that  there  will  be 


132  A    JOY    FOR    EVER. 

divided  fields  of  thought ;  and  that  while  each 
will  give  its  scholars  a  great  general  idea  of 
the  world's  history,  such  as  all  men  should 
possess — each  will  also  take  upon  itself,  as 
its  own  special  duty,  the  closer  study  of  the 
course  of  events  in  some  given  place  or  time. 
It  will  review  the  rest  of  history,  but  it  will 
exhaust  its  own  special  field  of  it ;  and  found 
its  moral  and  political  teaching  on  the  most 
perfect  possible  analysis  of  the  results  of  hu- 
man conduct  in  one  place,  and -at  one  epoch. 
And  then,  the  galleries  of  that  school  will  be 
painted  with  the  historical  scenes  belonging 
to  the  age  which  it  has  chosen  for  its  special 
study. 

no.  So  far,  then,  of  art  as  you  may  apply 
it  to  that  great  series  of  public  buildings  which 
you  devote  to  the  education  of  youth.  The 
next  large  class  of  public  buildings  in  which 
we  should  introduce  it,  is  one  which  I  think  a 
few  years  more  of  national  progress  will  render 
more  serviceable  to  us  than  they  have  been 
lately.  I  mean,  buildings  for  the  meetings  of 
guilds  of  trades. 

And  here,  for  the  last  time,  I  must  again 
interrupt   the  course  of  our  chief  inquiry,  in 


II.     ACCUMULATION    AND    DISTRIBUTION.      1 33 

order  to  state  one  other  principle  of  political 
economy,  which  is  perfectly  simple  and  indis- 
putable ;  but  which,  nevertheless,  we  continu- 
ally get  into  commercial  embarrassments  for 
want  of  understanding ;  and  not  only  so,  but 
suffer  much  hindrance  in  our  commercial  dis- 
coveries, because  many  of  our  business  men  do 
not  practically  admit  it. 

Supposing  half  a  dozen  or  a  dozen  men 
were  cast  ashore  from  a  wreck  on  an  unin- 
habited island,  and  left  to  their  own  resources, 
one  of  course,  according  to  his  capacity,  would 
be  set  to  one  business  and  one  to  another  ; 
the  strongest  to  dig  and  cut  wood,  and  to 
build  huts  for  the  rest :  the  most  dexterous 
to  make  shoes  out  of  bark  and  coats  out  of 
skins ;  the  best  educated  to  look  for  iron  or 
lead  in  the  rocks,  and  to  plan  the  channels  for 
the  irrigation  of  the  fields.  But  though  their 
labours  were  thus  naturally  severed,  that  small 
group  of  shipwrecked  men  would  understand 
well  enough  that  the  speediest  progress  was 
to  be  made  by  helping  each  other, — not  by 
opposing  each  other :  and  they  would  know 
that  this  help  could  only  be  properly  given 
so  long  as  they  were  frank  and  open  in  their 


134  A   J°Y    FOR    EVER. 

relations,  and  the  difficulties  which  each  lay 
under  properly  explained  to  the  rest.  So  that 
any  appearance  of  secrecy  or  separateness  in 
the  actions  of  any  cf  them  would  instantly,  and 
justly,  be  looked  upon  with  suspicion  by  the 
rest,  as  the  sign  of  some  selfish  or  foolish  pro- 
ceeding on  the  part  of  the  individual.  If,  for 
instance,  the  scientific  man  were  found  to  have 
gone  out  at  night,  unknown  to  the  rest,  to  alter 
the  sluices,  the  others  would  think,  and  in  all 
probability  rightly  think,  that  he  wanted  to  get 
the  best  supply  of  water  to  his  own  field  ;  and 
if  the  shoemaker  refused  to  show  them  where 
the  bark  grew  which  he  made  the  sandals  of, 
they  would  naturally  think,  and  in  all  proba- 
bility rightly  think,  that  he  didn't  want  them 
to  see  how  much  there  was  of  it,  and  that  he 
meant  to  ask  from  them  more  corn  and  po- 
tatoes in  exchange  for  his  sandals  than  the 
trouble  of  making  them  deserved.  And  thus, 
although  each  man  would  have  a  portion  of 
time  to  himself  in  which  he  was  allowed  to 
do  what  he  chose  without  let  or  inquiry, — so 
long  as  he  was  working  in  that  particular 
business  which  he  had  undertaken  for  the 
common  benefit,  any  secrecy  on  his  part  would 


II.     ACCUMULATION    AND    DISTRIBUTION.      1 35 

be  immediately  supposed  to  mean  mischief; 
and  would  require  to  be  accounted  for,  or  put 
an  end  to :  and  this  all  the  more  because, 
whatever  the  work  might  be,  certainly  there 
would  be  difficulties  about  it  which,  when  once 
they  were  well  explained,  might  be  more  or 
less  done  away  with  by  the  help  of  the  rest ; 
so  that  assuredly  every  one  of  them  would 
advance  with  his  labour  not  only  more  happily, 
but  more  profitably  and  quickly,  by  having  no 
secrets,  and  by  frankly  bestowing,  and  frankly 
receiving,  such  help  as  lay  in  his  way  to  get  or 
to  give. 

hi.  And,  just  as  the  best  and  richest  result 
of  wealth  and  happiness  to  the  whole  of  them 
would  follow  on  their  perseverance  in  such  a 
system  of  frank  communication  and  of  helpful 
labour  ; — so  precisely  the  worst  and  poorest  re- 
sult would  be  obtained  by  a  system  of  secrecy 
and  of  enmity  ;  and  each  man's  happiness  and 
wealth  would  assuredly  be  diminished  in  pro- 
portion to  the  degree  in  which  jealousy  and 
concealment  became  their  social  and  economical 
principles.  It  would  not,  in  the  long  run,  bring 
good,  but  only  evil,  to  the  man  of  science,  if, 
instead  of  telling  openly  where  he  had   found 


136  "a  joy  for  ever." 

good  iron,  he  carefully  concealed  every  new 
bed  of  it,  that  he  might  ask,  in  exchange 
for  the  rare  ploughshare,  more  corn  from  the 
farmer,  or,  in  exchange  for  the  rude  needle, 
more  labour  from  the  sempstress  :  and  it  would 
not  ultimately  bring  good,  but  only  evil,  to  the 
farmers,  if  they  sought  to  burn  each  other's 
cornstacks,  that  they  might  raise  the  value 
of  their  grain,  or  if  the  sempstresses  tried  to 
break  each  other's  needles,  that  each  might  get 
all  the  stitching  to  herself. 

112.  Now,  these  laws  of  human  action  are 
precisely  as  authoritative  in  their  application  to 
the  conduct  of  a  million  of  men,  as  to  that 
of  six  or  twelve.  All  enmity,  jealousy,  oppo- 
sition, and  secrecy  are  wholly,  and  in  all  cir- 
cumstances, destructive  in  their  nature— not 
productive ;  and  all  kindness,  fellowship,  and 
communicativeness  are  invariably  productive 
in  their  operation, — not  destructive ;  and  the 
evil  principles  of  opposition  and  exclusiveness 
are  not  rendered  less  fatal,  but  more  fatal,  by 
their  acceptance  among  large  masses  of  men  ; 
more  fatal,  I  say,  exactly  in  proportion  as  their 
influence  is  more  secret.  For  though  the  oppo- 
sition does  always  its  own  simple,  necessary, 


II,     ACCUMULATION    AND    DISTRIBUTION.     137 

direct  quantity  of  harm,  and  withdraws  always 
its  own  simple,  necessary,  measurable  quantity 
of  wealth  from  the  sum  possessed  by  the 
community,  yet,  in  proportion  to  the  size  of 
the  community,  it  does  another  and  more  re- 
fined mischief  than  this,  by  concealing  its  own 
fatality  under  aspects  of  mercantile  complica- 
tion and  expediency,  and  giving  rise  to  multi- 
tudes of  false  theories  based  on  a  mean  belief 
in  narrow  and  immediate  appearances  of  good 
done  here  and  there  by  things  which  have  the 
universal  and  everlasting  nature  of  evil.  So 
that  the  time  and  powers  of  the  nation  are 
wasted,  not  only  in  wretched  struggling  against 
each  other,  but  in  vain  complaints,  and  ground- 
less discouragements,  and  empty  investigations, 
and  useless  experiments  in  laws,  and  elections, 
and  inventions ;  with  hope  always  to  pull  wis- 
dom through  some  new- shaped  slit  in  a  ballot- 
box,  and  to  drag  prosperity  down  out  of  the 
clouds  along  some  new  knot  of  electric  wire  ; 
while  all  the  while  Wisdom  stands  calling  at 
the  corners  of  the  streets,  and  the  blessing 
of  Heaven  waits  ready  to  rain  down  upon 
us,  deeper  than  the  rivers  and  broader  than 
the  dew,   if  only  we  will  obey  the  first   plain 


138  "a  joy  for  ever." 

principles  of  humanity,  and  the  first  plain  pre- 
cepts of  the  skies  :  "  Execute  true  judgment, 
and  show  mercy  and  compassion,  every  man  to 
his  brother  ;  and  let  none  of  you  imagine  evil 
against  his  brother  in  your  heart."  * 

113.  Therefore,  I  believe  most  firmly,  that 
as  the  laws  of  national  prosperity  get  familiar 
to  us,  we  shall  more  and  more  cast  our  toil 
into  social  and  communicative  systems ;  and 
that  one  of  the  first  means  of  our  doing  so, 
will  be  the  re-establishing  guilds  of  every 
important  trade  in  a  vital,  not  formal,  con- 
dition ; — that  there  will  be  a  great  council  or 
government  house  for  the  members  of  every 
trade,  built  in  whatever  town  of  the  kingdom 

*  It  would  be  well  if,  instead  of  preaching  continually 
about  the  doctrine  of  faith  and  good  works,  our  clergymen 
would  simply  explain  to  their  people  a  little  what  good 
works  mean.  There  is  not  a  chapter  in  all  the  book  we 
profess  to  believe,  more  specially  and  directly  written  for 
England  than  the  second  of  Habakkuk,  and  I  never  in  all 
my  life  heard  one  of  its  practical  texts  preached  from.  I 
suppose  the  clergymen  are  all  afraid,  and  know  their  flocks, 
while  they  will  sit  quite  politely  to  heir  syllogisms  out  of 
the  epistle  to  the  Romans,  would  get  restive  directly  if  they 
ever  pressed  a  practical  text  home  to  them.  But  we  should 
have  no  mercantile  catastrophes,  and  no  distressful  pauperism, 
if  we  only  read  often,  and  took  to  heart,  those  plain  words  : 
— "  Yea,  also,  because  he  is  a  proud  man,  neither  keepeth 


II.     ACCUMULATION    AND    DISTRIBUTION.      1 39 

occupies  itself  principally  in  such  trade,  with 
minor  council-halls  in  other  cities  ;  and  to  each 
council-hall,  officers  attached,  whose  first  busi- 
ness may  be  to  examine  into  the  circumstances 
of  every  operative,  in  that  trade,  who  chooses 
to  report  himself  to  them  when  out  of  wcrk, 
and  to  set  him  to  work,  if  he  is  indeed  able 
and  willing,  at  a  fixed  rate  of  wages,  deter- 
mined at  regular  periods  in  the  council-meet- 
ings ;  and  whose  next  duty  may  be  to  bring 
reports  before  the  council  of  all  improvements 
made  in  the  business,  and  means  of  its  ex- 
tension :  not  allowing  private  patents  of  any 
kind,  but  making  all  improvements  available  to 
every  member  of  the  guild,  only  allotting,  after 

at  home,  who  enlargeth  his  desire  as  hell,  and  cannot  be 
satisfied, — Shall  not  all  these  take  up  a  parable  against  him, 
and  a  taunting  proverb  against  him,  and  say,  '  Woe  to  him 
that  increaseth  that  which  is  not  his  :  and  to  him  that  ladtth 
himself  until  thick  clay  '?  "  (What  a  glorious  history  in  one 
metaphor,  of  the  life  of  a  man  greedy  of  fortune  !)  "  Woe 
to  him  that  coveteth  an  evil  covetousness  that  he  may  set 
his  nest  on  high.  Woe  to  him  that  buildeth  a  town  with 
blood,  and  stablisheth  a  city  by  iniquity.  Behold,  is  it  not 
of  the  Lord  of  Hosts  that  the  people  shall  labour  in  the  very 
fire,  and  the  people  shall  weary  themselves  for  very  vanity  ?  " 
The  Americans,  who  have  been  sending  out  ships  with 
sham  bolt-heads  on  their  timbers,  and  only  half  their  bolts, 
may  meditate  on  that  (i  buildeth  a  town  with  blood." 


i-4-O  "a  joy  for  ever." 

successful   trial  of  them,   a  certain   reward  to 
the  inventors. 

1 14.  For  these,  and  many  other  such  pur- 
poses, such  halls  will  be  again,  I  trust,  fully 
established,  and  then,  in  the  paintings  and 
decorations  of  them,  especial  effort  ought  to 
be  made  to  express  the  worthiness  and  hon- 
ourableness  of  the  trade  for  whose  members 
they  are  founded.  For  I  believe  one  of  the 
worst  symptoms  of  modern  society  to  be,  its 
notion  of  great  inferiority,  and  ungentlemanli- 
ness,  as  necessarily  belonging  to  the  character 
of  a  tradesman.  I  believe  tradesmen  may  be, 
ought  to  be — often  are,  more  gentlemen  than 
idle  and  useless  people :  and  I  believe  that 
art  may  do  noble  work  by  recording  in  the 
hall  of  each  trade,  the  services  which  men 
belonging  to  that  trade  have  done  for  their 
country,  both  preserving  the  portraits,  and  re- 
cording the  important,  incidents  in  the  lives,  cf 
those  who  have  made  great  advances  in  com- 
merce and  civilization.  I  cannot  follow  out 
this  subject— it  branches  too  far,  and  in  too 
many  directions ;  besides,  I  have  no  doubt 
you  will  at  once  see  and  accept  the  truth  of 
the    main    principle,   and    be    able   to   think   it 


II.     ACCUMULATION    AND    DISTRIBUTION.     I4I 

out  for  yourselves.  I  would  fain  also  have 
said  something  of  what  might  be  done,  in  the 
same  manner,  for  almshouses  and  hospitals, 
and  for  what,  as  I  shall  try  to  explain  in 
notes  to  this  lecture,  we  may  hope  to  see, 
some  day,  established  with  a  different  meaning 
in  their  name  than  that  they  now  bear — work- 
houses ;  but  I  have  detained  you  too  long 
already,  and  cannot. permit  myself  to  trespass 
further  on  your  patience  except  only  to  recapi- 
tulate, in  closing,  the  simple  principles  respect- 
ing wealth  which  we  have  gathered  during  the 
course  of  our  inquiry ;  principles  which  are 
nothing  more  than  the  literal  and  practical  ac- 
ceptance of  the  saying  which  is  in  all  good 
men's  mouths — namely,  that  they  are  stewards 
or  ministers  of  whatever  talents  are  entrusted 
to  them. 

115.  Only,  is  it  not  a  strange  thing,  that 
while  we  more  or  less  accept  the  meaning  of 
that  saying,  so  long  as  it  is  considered  meta- 
phorical, we  never  accept  its  meaning  in  its 
own  terms  ?  You  know  the  lesson  is  given 
us  under  the  form  of  a  story  about  money. 
Money  was  given  to  the  servants  to  make  use 
of:  the  unprofitable  servant  dug  in  the  earth, 


142  '  A    JOY    FOR    EVER. 

and  hid  his  lord's  money.  Well,  we,  in  our 
political  and  spiritual  application  of  this,  say, 
that  of  course  money  doesn't  mean  money : 
it  means  wit,  it  means  intellect,  it  means  in- 
fluence in  high  quarters,  it  means  everything 
in  the  world  except  itself.  And  do  not 
you  see  what  a  pretty  and  pleasant  come- 
off  there  is  for  most  of  us,  in  this  spiritual 
application  ?  Of  course,  if  we  had  wit,  we 
would  use  it  for  the  good  of  our  fellow-crea- 
tures. But  we  haven't  wit.  Of  course,  if  we 
had  influence  with  the  bishops,  we  would  use 
it  for  the  good  of  the  Church  ;  but  we  haven't 
any  influence  with  the  bishops.  Of  course,  if 
we  had  political  power,  we  would  use  it  for 
the  good  of  the  nation  ;  but  we  have  no  politi- 
cal power  ;  we  have  no  talents  entrusted  to  us 
of  any  sort  or  kind.  It  is  true  we  have  a  little 
money,  but  the  parable  can't  possibly  mean 
anything  so  vulgar  as  money;  our  money's 
our  own. 

116.  I  believe,  if  you  think  seriously  of  this 
matter,  you  will  feel  that  the  first  and  most 
literal  application  is  just  as  necessary  a  one 
as  any  other — that  the  story  does  very  spe- 
cially mean  what  it   says — plain  money  ;  and 


II.     ACCUMULATION    AND    DISTRIBUTION.      1 43 

that  the  reason  we  don't  at  once  believe  it  does 
so,  is  a  sort  of  tacit  idea  that  while  thought, 
wit,  and  intellect,  and  all  power  of  birth  and 
position,  are  indeed  given  to  us,  and,  there- 
fore, to  be  laid  out  for  the  Giver— our  wealth 
has  not  been  given  to  us  ;  but  we  have  worked 
for  it,  and  have  a  right  to  spend  it  as  we 
choose.  1  think  you  will  find  that  is  the 
real  substance  of  our  understanding  in  this 
matter.  Beauty,  we  say,  is  given  by  God — it 
is  a  talent;  strength  is  given  by  God — it  is 
a  talent ;  position  is  given  by  God — it  is  a 
talent ;  but  money  is  proper  wages  for  our 
day's  work — it  is  not  a  talent,  it  is  a  due. 
We  may  justly  spend  it  on  ourselves,  if  we 
have  worked  for  it. 

117.  And  there  would  be  some  shadow  of 
excuse  for  this,  were  it  not  that  the  very  power 
of  making  the  money  is  itself  only  one  of  the 
applications  of  that  intellect  or  strength  which 
we  confess  to  be  talents.  Why  is  one  man 
richer  than  another  ?  Because  he  is  more  in- 
dustrious, more  persevering,  and  more  saga- 
cious. Well,  who  made  him  more  persevering 
or  more  sagacious  than  others  ?  That  power 
of  endurance,  that  quickness  of  apprehension, 


144  "A   JOY    FOR    EVER. 

that  calmness  of  judgment,  which  enable  him 
to  seize  the  opportunities  that  others  lose,  and 
persist  in  the  lines  of  conduct  in  which  others 
fail — are  these  not  talents  ? — are  they  not,  in 
the  present  state  of  the  world,  among  the  most 
distinguished  and  influential  of  mental  gifts  ? 
And  is  it  not  wonderful,  that  while  we  should 
be  utterly  ashamed  to  use  a  superiority  of 
body,  in  order  to  thrust  our  weaker  compa- 
nions aside  from  some  place  of  advantage,  we 
unhesitatingly  use  our  superiorities  of  mind 
to  thrust  them  back  from  whatever  good  that 
strength  of  mind  can  attain  ?  You  would  be 
indignant  if  you  saw  a  strong  man  walk  into 
a  theatre  or  a  lecture-room,  and,  calmly  choos- 
ing the  best  place,  take  his  feeble  neighbour 
by  the  shoulder,  and  turn  him  out  of  it  into 
the  back  seats,  or  the  street.  You  would  be 
equally  indignant  if  you  saw  a  stout  fellow 
thrust  himself  up  to  a  table  where  some  hun- 
gry children  were  being  fed,  and  reach  his 
arm  over  their  heads  and  take  their  bread  from 
them.  But  you  are  not  the  least  indignant 
if,  when  a  man  has  stoutness  of  thought  and 
swiftness  of  capacity,  and,  instead  of  being 
long-armed  only,  has    the   much   greater   gift 


II.     ACCUMULATION    AND    DISTRIBUTION.      I45 

of  being  long-headed — you  think  it  perfectly 
just  that  he  should  use  his  intellect  to  take  the 
bread  out  of  the  mouths  of  all  the  other  men 
in  the  town  who  are  of  the  same  trade  with 
him  ;  or  use  his  breadth  and  sweep  of  sight  to 
gather  some  branch  of  the  commerce  of  the 
country  into  one  great  cobweb,  of  which  he 
is  himself  to  be  the  central  spider,  making 
every  thread  vibrate  with  the  points  of  his 
claws,  and  commanding  every  avenue  with  the 
facets  of  his  eyes.  You  see  no  injustice  in  this. 
118.  But  there  is  injustice;  and,  let  us  trust, 
one  of  which  honourable  men  will  at  no  very 
distant  period  disdain  to  be  guilty.  In  some 
degree,  however,  it  is  indeed  not  unjust ;  in 
some  degree,  it  is  necessary  and  intended. 
It  is  assuredly  just  that  idleness  should  be 
surpassed  by  energy ;  that  the  widest  influence 
should  be  possessed  by  those  who  are  best 
able  to  wield  it ;  and  that  a  wise  man,  at  the 
end  of  his  career,  should  be  better  off  than 
a  fool.  But  for  that  reason,  is  the  fool  to  be 
wretched,  utterly  crushed  down,  and  left  in  all 
the  suffering  which  his  conduct  and  capacity 
naturally  inflict  ? — Not  so.  What  do  you 
suppose    fools    were    made    for  ?     That     you 

in 


146  "a  joy  for  ever." 

might  tread  upon  them,  and  starve  them,  and 
get  the  better  of  them  in  every  possible  way  ? 
By  no  means.  They  were  made  that  wise 
people  might  take  care  of  them.  That  is  the 
true  and  plain  fact  concerning  the  relations  of 
every  strong  and  wise  man  to  the  world  about 
him.  He  has  his  strength  given  him,  not  that 
he  may  crush  the  weak,  but  that  he  may 
support  and  guide  them.  In  his  own  house- 
hold he  is  to  be  the  guide  and  the  support 
of  his  children  ;  out  of  his  household  he  is 
still  to  be  the  father  —that  is,  the  guide  and 
support — of  the  weak  and  the  poor ;  not  merely 
of  the  meritoriously  weak  and  the  innocently 
poor,  but  of  the  guiltily  and  punishably  poor  ; 
of  the  men  who  ought  to  have  known  better 
— of  the  poor  who  ought  to  be  ashamed  of 
themselves.  It  is  nothing  to  give  pension  and 
cottage  to  the  widow  who  has  lost  her  son  \ 
it  is  nothing  to  give  food  and  medicine  to 
the  workman  who  has  broken  his  arm,  or  the 
decrepit  woman  wasting  in  sickness.  But  it 
is  something  to  use  your  time  and  strength 
to  war  with  the  waywardness  and  thoughtless- 
ness of  mankind  ;  to  keep  the  erring  work- 
man   in  your  service  till  you  have  made  him 


II.     ACCUMULATION    AND    DISTRIBUTION.       1 47 

an  unerring  one  ;  and  to  direct  your  fellow- 
merchant  to  the  opportunity  which  his  dulness 
would  have  lost.  This  is  much  ;  but  it  is 
yet  more,  when  you  have  fully  achieved  the 
superiority  which  is  due  to  you,  and  acquired 
the  wealth  which  is  the  fitting  reward  of  your 
sagacity,  if  you  solemnly  accept  the  responsi- 
bility of  it,  as  it  is  the  helm  and  guide  of 
labour  far  and  near. 

1 19.  For  you  who  have  it  in  your  hands  are 
in  reality  the  pilots  of  the  power  and  effort  of 
the  State.  It  is  entrusted  to  you  as  an  autho- 
rity to  be  used  for  good  or  evil,  just  as  com- 
pletely as  kingly  authority  was  ever  given  to 
a  prince,  or  military  command  to  a  captain. 
And,  according  to  the  quantity  of  it  that  you 
have  in  your  hands,  you  are  the  arbiters  of 
the  will  and  work  of  England  ;  and  the  whole 
issue,  whether  the  work  of  the  State  shall 
suffice  for  the  State  or  not,  depends  upon  you. 
You  may  stretch  out  your  sceptre  over  the 
heads  of  the  English  labourers,  and  say  to 
them,  as  they  stoop  to  its  waving,  "Subdue 
this  obstacle  that  has  baffled  our  fathers, 
put  away  this  plague  that  consumes  our  chil- 
dren;  water    these    dry    places,    plough    these 


148  "a  joy  for  ever." 

desert  ones,  carry  this  food  to  those  who  are 
in  hunger  ;  carry  this  light  to  those  who  are 
in  darkness  ;  carry  this  life  to  those  who  are 
in  death  ; "  or  on  the  other  side  you  may  say 
to  her  labourers  :  "  Here  am  I ;  this  power 
is  in  my  hand  ;  come,  build  a  mound  here 
for  me  to  be  throned  upon,  high  and  wide ; 
come,  make  crowns  for  my  head,  that  men 
may  see  them  shine  from  far  away ;  come, 
weave  tapestries  for  my  feet,  that  I  may  tread 
softly  on  the  silk  and  purple  ;  come,  dance  be- 
fore me,  that  I  may  be  gay  ;  and  sing  sweetly 
to  me,  that  I  may  slumber;  so  shall  I  live  in 
joy,  and  die  in  honour."  And  better  than  such 
an  honourable  death  it  w7ere  that  the  day  had 
perished  wherein  we  were  born,  and  the  night 
in  which  it  was  said  there  is  a  child  con- 
ceived. 

120.  I  trust  that  in  a  little  while  there  will 
be  few  of  our  rich  men  who,  through  careless- 
ness or  covetousness,  thus  forfeit  the  glorious 
office  which  is  intended  for  their  hands.  I 
said,  just  now,  that  wealth  ill-used  was  as 
the  net  of  the  spider,  entangling  and  destroy- 
ing :  but  wealth  well  used  is  as  the  net  of 
the    sacred    fisher   who  gathers    souls  of  men 


II.     ACCUMULATION    AND    DISTRIBUTION.       I49 

out  of  the  deep.  A  time  will  come — I  do 
not  think  even  now  it  is  far  from  us — -when 
this  golden  net  of  the  world's  wealth  will 
be  spread  abroad  as  the  flaming  meshes  of 
morning  cloud  are  over  the  sky ;  bearing  with 
them  the  joy  of  light  and  the  dew  of  the 
morning,  as  well  as  the  summons  to  hon- 
ourable and  peaceful  toil.  What  less  can  we 
hope  from  your  wealth  than  this,  rich  men  of 
England,  when  once  you  feel  fully  how,  by  the 
strength  of  your  possessions — not,  observe,  by 
the  exhaustion,  but  by  the  administration  of 
them  and  the  power, — you  can  direct  the  acts 
— command  the  energies — inform  the  igno- 
rance— prolong  the  existence,  of  the  whole 
human  race  ;  and  how,  even  of  worldly  wis- 
dom, which  man  employs  faithfully,  it  is  true, 
not  only  that  her  ways  are  pleasantness,  but 
that  her  paths  are  peace  ;  and  that,  for  all 
the  children  of  men,  as  well  as  for  those  to 
whom  she  is  given,  Length  of  days  is  in 
her  right  hand,  as  in  her  left  hand  Riches 
and  Honour  ? 


ADDE  N  DA, 


Note,  p.  18. — "-Fatherly  authority.''' 

121.  This  statement  could  not,  of  course,  be 
heard  without  displeasure  by  a  certain  class  of 
politicians  ;  and  in  one  of  the  notices  of  these 
lectures  given  in  the  Manchester  journals  at  the 
time,  endeavour  was  made  to  get  quit  of  it  by 
referring  to  the  Divine  authority,  as  the  only 
Paternal  power  with  respect  to  which  men  were 
truly  styled  "  brethren."  Of  course  it  is  so, 
and,  equally  of  course,  all  human  government 
is  nothing  else  than  the  executive  expression 
of  this  Divine  authority.  The  moment  govern- 
ment ceases  to  be  the  practical  enforcement  of 
Divine  law,  it  is  tyranny  ;  and  the  meaning 
which  I  attach  to  the  words  "  paternal  govern- 
ment," is,  in  more  extended  terms,  simply  this 
— "  The  executive  fulfilment,  by  formal  human 


152  "a  joy  for  ever." 

methods,  of  the  will  of  the  Father  of  man- 
kind respecting  His  children."  I  could  not 
give  such  a  definition  of  Government  as  this 
in  a  popular  lecture ;  and  even  in  written 
form,  it  will  necessarily  suggest  many  objec- 
tions, of  which  I  must  notice  and  answer  the 
most  probable. 

Only,  in  order  to  avoid  the  recurrence  of  such 
tiresome  phrases  as  "it  may  be  answered  in 
the  second  place,"  and  "  it  will  be  objected  in 
the  third  place,"  etc.,  I  will  ask  the  reader's 
leave  to  arrange  the  discussion  in  the  form  of 
simple  dialogue,  letting  O.  stand  for  objector, 
and  R.  for  response. 

122.  O. — You  define  your  paternal  govern- 
ment to  be  the  executive  fulfilment,  by  formal 
human  methods,  of  the  Divine  will.  But,  assur- 
edly, that  will  cannot  stand  in  need  of  aid  or 
expression  from  human  laws.  It  cannot  fail 
of  its  fulfilment. 

R.  122.  In  the  final  sense  it  cannot;  and  in 
that  sense,  men  who  are  committing  murder  and 
stealing  are  fulfilling  the  will  of  God  as  much 
as  the  best  and  kindest  people  in  the  world. 
But  in  the  limited  and  present  sense,  the 
only  sense  with   which  we   have    anything   to 


ADDENDA.  1 53 

do,  God's  will  concerning  man  is  fulfilled  by 
some  men,  and  thwarted  by  others.  And  those 
men  who  either  persuade  or  enforce  the  doing 
of  it,  stand  towards  those  who  are  rebellious 
against  it  exactly  in  the  position  of  faithful 
children  in  a  family,  who,  when  the  father  is  out 
of  sight,  either  compel  or  persuade  the  rest 
to  do  as  their  father  would  have  them,  were  he 
present ;  and  in  so  far  as  they  are  express- 
ing and  maintaining,  for  the  time,  the  paternal 
authority,  they  exercise,  in  the  exact  sense  in 
which  I  mean  the  phrase  to  be  understood, 
paternal  government  over  the  rest. 

O. — But,  if  Providence  has  left  a  liberty  to 
man  in  many  things  in  order  to  prove  him, 
why  should  human  law  abridge  that  liberty, 
and  take  upon  itself  to  compel  what  the  great 
Lawgiver  does  not  compel  ? 

123.  R. — It  is  confessed,  in  the  enactment 
of  any  law  whatsoever,  that  human  lawgivers 
have  a  right  to  do  this.  For,  if  you  have 
no  right  to  abridge  any  of  the  liberty  which 
Providence  has  left  to  man,  you  have  no  right 
to  punish  any  one  for  committing  murder  or 
robbery.  You  ought  to  leave  them  to  the  pun- 
ishment of  God  and  Nature.     But  if  you  think 


154  "A  J°Y  FOR  EVER-" 

yourself  under  obligation  to  punish,  as  far  as 
human  laws  can,  the  violation  of  the  will  of 
God  by  these  great  sins,  you  are  certainly 
under  the  same  obligation  to  punish,  with  pro- 
portionately less  punishment,  the  violation  of 
His  will  in  less  sins. 

O. — No  ;  you  must  not  attempt  to  punish 
less  sins  by  law,  because  you  cannot  properly 
define  nor  ascertain  them.  Everybody  can  de- 
termine whether  murder  has  been  committed  or 
not,  but  you  cannot  determine  how  far  people 
have  been  unjust  or  cruel  in  minor  matters, 
and  therefore  cannot  make  or  execute  laws 
concerning  minor  matters. 

R. — If  I  propose  to  you  to  punish  faults 
which  cannot  be  defined,  or  to  execute  laws 
which  cannot  be  made  equitable,  reject  the 
laws  I  propose.  But  do  not  generally  object 
to  the  principle  of  law. 

O. — Yes  ;  I  generally  object  to  the  principle 
of  law  as  applied  to  minor  things ;  because,  if 
you  could  succeed  (which  you  cannot)  in  regu- 
lating the  entire  conduct  of  men  by  law  in 
little  things  as  well  as  great,  you  would  take 
away  from  human  life  all  its  probationary  cha- 
racter, and  render  many  virtues  and  pleasures 


ADDENDA.  1 55 

impossible.  You  would  reduce  virtue  to  the 
movement  of  a  machine,  instead  of  the  act  of 
a  spirit. 

124.  R. — You  have  just  said,  parenthetically, 
and  I  fully  and  willingly  admit  it,  that  it  is  im- 
possible to  regulate  all  minor  matters  by  law. 
Is  it  not  probable,  therefore,  that  the  degree  in 
which  it  is  possible  to  regulate  them  b}*-  it,  is 
also  the  degree  in  which  it  is  right  to  regulate 
them  by  it  ?  Or  what  other  means  of  judg- 
ment will  you  employ,  to  separate  the  things 
which  ought  to  be  formally  regulated  from  the 
things  which  ought  not  ?  You  admit  that  great 
sins  should  be  legally  repressed  ;  but  you  say 
that  small  sins  should  not  be  legally  repressed. 
How  do  you  distinguish  between  great  and 
small  sins  ?  and  how  do  you  intend  to  deter- 
mine, or  do  you  in  practice  of  daily  life  deter- 
mine, on  what  occasions  you  should  compel 
people  to  do  right,  and  on  what  occasions  you 
should  leave  them  the  option  of  doing  wrong  ? 

O. — I  think  you  cannot  make  any  accurate 
or  logical  distinction  in  such  matters ;  but  that 
common  sense  and  instinct  have,  in  all  civilised 
nations,  indicated  certain  crimes  of  great  social 
harmful ness,   such  as   murder,   theft,    adulter}', 


156  "a  joy  for  ever." 

slander,  and  such  like,  which  it  is  proper  to 
repress  legally ;  and  that  common  senss  and 
instinct  indicate  also  the  kind  of  crimes  which 
it  is  proper  for  laws  to  let  alone,  such  as 
miserliness,  ill-natured  speaking,  and  many  of 
those  commercial  dishonesties  which  I  have 
a  notion  you  want  your  paternal  government 
to  interfere  with. 

R. — Pray  do  not  alarm  yourself  about  what 
my  paternal  government  is  likely  to  interfere 
with,  but  keep  to  the  matter  in  hand.  You  .say 
that  "  common  sense  and  instinct "  have,  in 
all  civilised  nations,  distinguished  between  the 
sins  that  ought  to  be  legally  dealt  with  and 
that  ought  not.  Do  you  mean  that  the  laws 
of  all  civilised   nations  are  perfect  ? 

O. — No  ;  certainly  not. 

R. — Or  that  they  are  perfect  at  least  in  their 
discrimination  of  what  crimes  they  should  deal 
with,   and  what  crimes  they  should  let-alone? 

O. — No  ;  not  exactly. 

R. — What  do  you  mean,  then  ? 

125.  O. — I  mean  that  the  general  tendency  is 
right  in  the  laws  of  civilised  nations  ;  and  that, 
in  due  course  of  time,  natural  sense  and  in- 
stinct   point  out    the    matters  they  should   be 


ADDENDA.  157 

brought  to  bear  upon.  And  each  question  of 
legislation  must  be  made  a  separate  subject 
of  inquiry  as  it  presents  itself:  you  cannot  fix 
any  general  principles  about  what  should  be 
dealt  with  legalty,  and  what  should  not. 

R. — Supposing  it  to  be  so,  do  you  think  there 
are  any  points  in  which  our  English  legis- 
lation is  capable  of  amendment,  as  it  bears  on 
commercial  and  economical  matters,  in  this 
present  time  ? 

O. — Of  course  I  do. 

R. — Well,  then,  let  us  discuss  these  together 
quietly ;  and  if  the  points  that  I  want  amended 
seem  to  you  incapable  of  amendment,  or  not  in 
need  of  amendment,  say  so :  but  don't  object, 
at  starting,  to  the  mere  proposition  of  applying 
law  to  things  which  have  not  had  law  applied 
to  them  before.  You  have  admitted  the  fitness 
of  my  expression,  "paternal  government":  it 
only  has  been,  and  remains,  a  question  between 
us,  how  far  such  government  should  extend. 
Perhaps  you  would  like  it  only  to  regulate, 
among  the  children,  the  length  of  their  lessons  ; 
and  perhaps  I  should  like  it  also  to  regulate 
the  hardness  of  their  cricket-balls  :  but  cannot 
you  wait  quietly  till   you    know   what    I    want 


158  "a  joy  for  ever." 

it  to  do,  before  quarrelling  with  the  thing  it- 
self? 

O. — No  ;  I  cannot  wait  quietly ;  in  fact,  I 
don't  see  any  use  in  beginning  such  a  discus- 
sion at  all,  because  I  am  quite  sure  from  the 
first,  that  you  want  to  meddle  with  things  that 
you  have  no  business  with,  and  to  interfere 
with-  healthy  liberty  of  action  in  all  sorts  of 
ways  ;  and  I  know  that  you  can't  propose  any 
laws  that  would  be  of  real  use.* 

126.  R. — If  you  indeed  know  that,  you 
would  be  wrong  to  hear  me  any  farther.  But 
if  you  are  only  in  painful  doubt  about  me, 
which  makes  you  unwilling  to  run  the  risk  of 
wasting  your  time,  I  will  tell  you  beforehand 
what  I  really  do  think  about  this  same  liberty 
of  action,  namely,  that  whenever  we  can  make 
a  perfectly  equitable  law  about  any  matter,  or 
even  a  law  securing,  on  the  whole,  more  just 

*  If  the  reader  is  displeased  with  me  for  putting  this  fool- 
ish speech  into  his  mouth,  1  enireat  his  pardon  ;  but  he  may 
be  assured  that  it  is  a  speech  which  would  be  made  by  many 
people,  and  the  substance  of  which  would  be  tacitly  felt  by 
many  more,  at  this  point  of  the  discussion.  I  have  really  tried, 
up  to  this  point,  to  make  the  objector  as  intelligent  a  person 
as  it  is  possible  for  an  author  to  imagine  anybody  to  be  who 
differs  with  him. 


ADDENDA.  1 59 

conduct  than  unjust,  we  ought  to  make  that 
law ;  and  that  there  will  yet,  on  these  con- 
ditions, always  remain  a  number  of  matters 
respecting  which  legalism  and  formalism  are 
impossible  ;  enough,  and  more  than  enough,  to 
exercise  all  human  powers  of  individual  judg- 
ment, and  afford  all  kinds  of  scope  to  indivi- 
dual character.  I  think  this ;  but  of  course  it 
can  only  be  proved  by  separate  examination 
of  the  possibilities  of  formal  restraint  in  each 
given  field  of  action;  and  these  two  lectures 
are  nothing  more  than  a  sketch  of  such  a 
detailed  examination  in  one  field,  namely,  that 
of  art.  You  will  find,  however,  one  or  two 
other  remarks  on  such  possibilities  in  the 
next  note. 


Note  2nd,  p.  21. — *••  Right  to  public  support." 

127.  It  did  not  appear  to  me  desirable,  in 
the  course  of  the  spoken  lecture,  to  enter  into 
details  or  offer  suggestions  on  the  questions 
of  the  regulation  of  labour  and  distribution  of 
relief,  as  it  would  have  been  impossible  to 
do  so  without  touching  on  many  disputed  or 
disputable    poinds,    not    easily    handled    before 


160  "a  joy  for  ever.v" 

a  general  audience.  But  I  must,  now  supply 
what  is  wanting  to  make  my  general  state- 
ment clear. 

I  believe,  in  the  first  place,  that  no  Chris- 
tian nation  has  any  business  to  see  one  of 
its  members  in  distress  without  helping  him, 
though,  perhaps,  at  the  same  time  punishing 
him  :  help,  of  course — in  nine  cases  out  of  ten 
— meaning  guidance,  much  more  than  gift, 
and,  therefore,  interference  with  libert}'.  When 
a  peasant  mother  sees  one  of  her  careless  chil- 
dren fall  into  a  ditch,  her  first  proceeding  is 
to  pull  him  out ;  her  second,  to  box  his  ears  ; 
her  third,  ordinarily,  to  lead  him  carefully  a 
little  way  by  the  hand,  or  send  him  home 
for  the  rest  of  the  day.  The  child  usually 
cries,  and  very  often  would  clearly  prefer  re- 
maining in  the  ditch  ;  and  if  he  understood 
any  of  the  terms  of  politics,  would  certainly 
express  resentment  at  the  interference  with 
his  individual  liberty  :  but  the  mother  has 
done  her  duty.  Whereas  the  usual  call  of  the 
mother  nation  to  any  of  her  children,  under 
such  circumstances,  has  lately  been  nothing 
more  than  the  foxhunter's, — "  Stay  still  there  ; 
I    shall    clear  you."     And   if  we  always  could 


ADDENDA.  l6l 

clear  them,  their  requests  to  be  left  in  muddy 
independence  might  be  sometimes  allowed  by 
kind  people,  or  their  cries  for  help  disdained 
by  unkind  ones.  But  we  can't  clear  them. 
The  whole  nation  is,  in  fact,  bound  together, 
as  men  are  by  ropes  on  a  glacier — if  one  falls, 
the  rest  must  either  lift  him  or  drag  him  along 
with  them  *  as  dead  weight,  not  without  much 
increase  of  danger  to  themselves.  And  the 
law  of  right  being  manifestly  in  this — as, 
whether  manifestly  or  not,  it  is  alwa}'s,  the  law 
of  prudence — the  only  question  is,  how  this 
wholesome  help  and  interference  are  to  be 
administered. 

128.  The  first  interference  should  be  in 
education.  In  order  that  men  may  be  able  to 
support  themselves  when  they  are  grown,  their 
strength  must  be  properly  developed  while 
they  are  young  ;  and  the  State  should  always 
see   to    this — not   allowing   their   health  to   be 

*  It  is  very  curious  to  watch  the  efforts  of  two  shop- 
keepers to  ruin  each  other,  neither  having  the  least  idea  that 
his  ruined  neighbour  must  eventually  be  supported  at  his  own 
expense,  with  an  increase  of  poor  rates  ;  and  that  the  contest 
between  them  is  not  in  reality  which  shall  get  everything 
for  himself,  but  which  shall  first  take  upon  himself  and  his 
customers  the  gratuitous  maintenance  of  the  other's  family. 

II 


162  "a  joy  for  ever." 

broken  by  too  early  labour,  nor  their  powers 
to  be  wasted  for  want  of  knowledge.  Some 
questions  connected  with  this  matter  are 
noticed  farther  on  under  the  head  "  trial 
schools "  :  one  point  I  must  notice  here,  that 
I  believe  all  youths,  of  whatever  rank,  ought 
to  learn  some  manual  trade  thoroughly ;  for  it 
is  quite  wonderful  how  much  a  man's  views 
of  life  are  cleared  by  the  attainment  of  the 
capacity  of  doing  any  one  thing  well  with  his 
hands  and  arms.  For  a  long  time,  what  right 
life  there  was  in  the  upper  classes  of  Europe 
depended  in  no  small  degree  on  the  necessity 
which  each  man  was  under  of  being  able  to 
fence ;  at  this  day,  the  most  useful  things 
which  boys  learn  at  public  schools  are,  I 
believe,  riding,  rowing,  and  cricketing.  But  it 
would  be  far  better  that  members  of  Parliament 
should  be  able  to  plough  straight,  and  make  a 
horseshoe,  than  only  to  feather  oars  neatly 
or  point  their  toes  prettily  in  stirrups.  Then, 
in  literary  and  scientific  teaching,  the  great 
point  of  economy  is  to  give  the  discipline  of 
it  through  knowledge  which  will  immediately 
bear  on  practical  life.  Our  literary  work  has 
long  been  economically  useless  to  us  because 


ADDENDA.  1 63 

too  much  concerned  with  dead  languages  ;  and 
our  scientific  work  will  yet,  for  some  time,  be 
a  good  deal  lost,  because  scientific  men  are  too 
fond  or  too  vain  of  their  systems,  and  waste 
the  student's  time  in  endeavouring  to  give  him 
large  views,  and  make  him  perceive  interesting 
connections  of  facts  ;  when  there  is  not  one 
student,  no,  nor  one  man,  in  a  thousand,  who 
can  feel  the  beauty  of  a  system,  or  even  take 
it  clearly  into  his  head ;  but  nearly  all  men 
can  understand,  and  most  will  be  interested  in, 
the  facts  which  bear  on  daily  life.  Botanists 
have  discovered  some  wonderful  connection 
between  nettles  and  figs,  which  a  cowboy  who 
will  never  see  a  ripe  fig  in  his  life  need  not  be 
at  all  troubled  about ;  but  it  will  be  interesting 
to  him  to  know  what  effect  nettles  have  on 
hay,  and  what  taste  they  will  give  to  porridge  ; 
and  it  will  give  him  nearly  a  new  life  if  he  can 
be  got  but  once,  in  a  spring  time,  to  look  well 
at  the  beautiful  circlet  of  white  .  ttle  blossom, 
and  work  out  with  his  schoolmaster  the  curves 
of  its  petals,  and  the  way  it  is  set  on  its  central 
mast.  So,  the  principle  of  chemical  equiva- 
lents, beautiful  as  it  is,  matters  far  less  to 
a    peasant    boy,    and    even    to    most    sons    of 


164  "a  joy  for  ever." 

gentlemen,  than  their  knowing  how  to  find 
whether  the  water  is  wholesome  in  the  back- 
kitchen  cistern,  or  whether  the  seven-acre  field 
wants  sand  or  chalk. 

129.  Having,  then,  directed  the  studies  of 
our  youth  so  as  to  make  them  practically  ser- 
viceable men  at  the  time  of  their  entrance  into 
life,  that  entrance  should  always  be  ready  for 
them  in  cases  where  their  private  circum- 
stances present  no  opening.  There  ought  to  be 
government  establishments  for  every  trade,  in 
which  all  youths  who  desired  it  should  be  re- 
ceived as  apprentices  on  their  leaving  school ; 
and  men  thrown  out  of  work  received  at 
all  times.  At  these  government  manufactories 
the  discipline  should  be  strict,  and  the  wages 
steady,  not  varying  at  all  in  proportion  to  the 
demand  for  the  article,  but  only  in  proportion 
to  the  price  of  food  ;  the  commodities  produced 
being  laid  up  in  store  to  meet  sudden  demands, 
and  sudden  fluctuations  in  prices  prevented  : 
—that  gradual  and  necessary  fluctuation  only 
being  allowed  which  is  properly  consequent  on 
larger  or  more  limited  supply  of  raw  material 
and  other  natural  causes.  When  there  was 
a  visible    tendency  to    produce  a  glut  of  any 


ADDENDA.  \6$ 

commodity,  that  tendency  should  be  checked  by 
directing  the  }routh  at  the  government  schools 
into  other  trades ;  and  the  yearly  surplus  of 
commodities  should  be  the  principal  means  of 
government  provisions  for  the  poor.  That 
provision  should  be  large,  and  not  disgraceful 
to  them.  At  present  there  are  very  strange 
notions  in  the  public  mind  respecting  the  re- 
ceiving of  alms  :  most  people  are  willing  to 
take  them  in  the  form  of  a  pension  from 
government,  but  unwilling  to  take  them  in  the 
form  of  a  pension  from  their  parishes.  There 
may  be  some  reason  for  this  singular  prejudice, 
in  the  fact  of  the  government  pension  being 
usually  given  as  a  definite  acknowledgment  of 
some  service  done  to  the  country  ; — but  the 
parish  pension  is,  or  ought  to  be,  given  pre- 
cisely on  the  same  terms.  A  labourer  serves 
his  country  with  his  spade,  just  as  a  man  in 
the  middle  ranks  of  life  serves  it  with  his 
sword,  pen,  or  lancet  :  if  the  service  is  less,  and 
therefore  the  wages  during  health  less,  then 
the  reward,  when  health  is  broken,  may  be 
less,  but  not,  therefore,  less  honourable  ;  and 
it  ought  to  be  quite  as  natural  and  straight- 
forward a  matter  for   a   labourer   to   take    his 


166  "a  joy  for  ever." 

pension  from  his  parish,  because  he  has  deserved 
well  of  his  parish,  as  for  a  man  in  higher 
rank  to  take  his  pension  from  his  country, 
because  he  has  deserved  well  of  his  country. 
130.  If  there  be  any  disgrace  in  coming  to 
the  parish,  because  it  may  imply  improvidence 
in  early  life,  much  more  is  there  disgrace  in 
coming  to  the  government :  since  improvidence 
is  far  less  justifiable  in  a  highly  educated  than 
in  an  imperfectly  educated  man  ;  and  far  less 
justifiable  in  a  high  rank,  where  extravagance 
must  have  been  luxury,  than  in  a  low  rank, 
where  it  may  only  have  been  comfort.  So 
that  the  real  fact  of  the  matter  is,  that  people 
will  take  alms  delightedly,  consisting  of  a 
carriage  and  footmen,  because  those  do  not 
look  like  alms  to  the  people  in  the  street ; 
but  they  will  not  take  alms  consisting  only  of 
bread  and  water  and  coals,  because  everybody 
would  understand  what  those  meant.  Mind, 
I  do  not  want  any  one  to  refuse  the  carriage 
who  ought  to  have  it;  but  neither  do  I  want 
them  to  refuse  the  coals.  I  should  indeed 
be  sorry  if  any  change  in  our  views  on  these 
subjects  involved  the  least  lessening  of  self- 
dependence    in    the    English    mind :    but    the 


ADDENDA.  \6j 

common  shrinking  of  men  from  the  acceptance 
of  public  charity  is  not  self-dependence,  but 
mere  base  and  selfish  pride.  It  is  not  that 
they  are  unwilling  to  live  at  their  neighbours' 
expense,  but  that  they  are  unwilling  to  confess 
they  do :  it  is  not  dependence  they  wish  to 
avoid,  but  gratitude.  They  will  take  places  in 
which  they  know  there  is  nothing  to  be  done — 
they  will  borrow  money  they  know  they  cannot 
repay — they  will  carry  on  a  losing  business 
with  other  people's  capital — they  will  cheat  the 
public  in  their  shops,  or  sponge  on  their  friends 
at  their  houses ;  but  to  say  plainly  they  are 
poor  men,  who  need  the  nation's  help  and  go 
into  an  almshouse, — this  they  loftily  repudiate, 
and  virtuously  prefer  being  thieves  to  being 
paupers. 

131.  I  trust  that  these  deceptive  efforts  of 
dishonest  men  to  appear  independent,  and  the 
agonizing  efforts  of  unfortunate  men  to  remain 
independent,  may  both  be  in  some  degree 
checked  by  a  better  administration  and  under- 
standing of  laws  respecting  the  poor.  But 
the  ordinances  for  relief  and  the  ordinances 
for  labour  must  go  together ;  otherwise  dis- 
tress   caused    by   misfortune    will   always    be 


168  "a  joy  for  ever." 

confounded,  as  it  is  now,  with  distress  caused 
by  idleness,  unthrift,  and  fraud.  It  is  only 
when  the  State  watches  and  guides  the  middle 
life  of  men,  that  it  can,  without  disgrace  to 
them,  protect  their  old  age,  acknowledging 
in  that  protection  that  they  have  done  their 
duty,  or  at  least  some  portion  of  their  duty, 
in  better  days. 

I  know  well  how  strange,  fanciful,  or  imprac- 
ticable these  suggestions  will  appear  to  most  of 
the  business  men  of  this  day ;  men  who  con- 
ceive the  proper  state  of  the  world  to  be 
simply  that  of  a  vast  and  disorganized  mob, 
scrambling  each  for  what  he  can  get,  tramp- 
ling down  its  children  and  old  men  in  the 
mire,  and  doing  what  work  it  finds  must  be 
done  with  any  irregular  squad  of  labourers  it 
can  bribe  or  inveigle  together,  and  afterwards 
scatter  to  starvation.  A  great  deal  may,  in- 
deed, be  done  in  this  way  by  a  nation  strong- 
elbowed  and  strong-hearted  as  we  are — not 
easily  frightened  by  pushing,  nor  discouraged 
by  falls.  But  it  is  still  not  the  right  way  of 
doing  things,  for  people  who  call  themselves 
Christians.  Every  so  named  soul  of  man 
claims  from  every  other  such  soul,  protection 


ADDENDA.  1 69 

and  education  in  childhood, — help  or  punish- 
ment in  middle  life, — reward  or  relief,  if 
needed,  in  old  age ;  all  of  these  should  be 
completely  and  unstintingly  given  ;  and  they 
can  only  be  given  by  the  organization  of  such 
a  system  as  I  have  described. 


Note  3rd,  p.   27. — "  Trial  Schools" 

132.  It  may  be  seriously  questioned  by  the 
reader  how  much  of  painting  talent  we  really 
lose  on  our  present  system,*    and   how  much 

*  It  will  be  observed  that,  in  the  lecture,  it  is  assumed 
that  works  of  art  are  national  treasures  ;  and  that  it  is  de- 
sirable to  withdraw  all  the  hands  capable  of  painting  or 
carving  from  other  employments,  in  order  that  they  may 
produce  this  kind  of  wealth.  I  do  not.  in  assuming  this, 
mean  that  works  of  ait  add  to  the  monetary  resources  of 
a  nation,  or  form  part  of  its  wealth,  in  the  vulgar  sense. 
The  result  of  the  sale  of  a  pic  ure  in  the  country  itself  is 
merely  that  a  certain  sum  of  money  is  transferred  from  the 
hands  of  B,  the  purchaser,  to  lhose  of  A,  the  producer  ; 
the  sum  ultimately  to  be  distributed  remaining  the  same, 
only  A  ultimately  spending  it  instead  of  "B,  while  the  labour 
of  A  has  been  in  the  meantime  withdrawn  from  productive 
channels ;  he  has  painted  a  picture  which  nobody  can  live 
upon,  or  live  in.  when  he  might  have  grown  corn  or  built 
houses  :  when  the  sale  therefore  is  effected  in  the  country 
itself,  it  does  not  add  to.  but  diminishes,  the  monetary  re- 
sources of  the  country,  except  only  so  frr  as  it  may  appear 


170  "a  joy  for  ever." 

we  should  gain  by  the  proposed  trial  schools. 
For  it  might  be  thought  that,  as  matters  stand 
at  present,    we    have    more    painters    than  we 

probable,  on  other  grounds,  that  A  is  likely  to  spend  the 
sum  he  receives  for  his  picture  more  rationally  and  use- 
fully than  B  would  have  spent  it.  If,  indeed,  the  picture, 
or  other  work  of  art,  be  sold  in  foreign  countries,  either 
the  money  or  the  useful  products  of  the  foreign  country 
be:ng  imported  in  exchange  for  it,  such  sale  adds  to  the 
monetary  resource;  of  the  selling,  and  diminishes  those  of 
the  purchasing  nation.  But  sound  political  economy,  strange 
as  it  may  at  first  appear  to  say  so,  has  nothing  whatever 
to  do  with  separations  between  national  interests.  Political 
economy  means  the  management  of  the  affairs  of  citizens  ; 
and  it  either  regards  exclusively  the  administration  of  the 
affairs  of  one  nation,  or  the  administration  of  the  affairs  of 
the  world  considered  as  one  nation.  So  when  a  transaction 
between  individuals  which  enriches  A  impoverishes  B  in 
precisely  the  same  degree,  the  sound  economist  considers 
it  an  unproductive  transaction  between  the  individuals  ;  and 
if  a  trade  between  two  nations  which  enriches  one.  impover- 
ishes the  other  in  the  same  degree,  the  sound  economist 
considers  it  an  unproductive  trade  between  the  nations.  It 
is  no1:  a  general  question  of  political  economy,  but  only  a 
particular  question  of  local  expediency,  whether  an  article,  in 
itself  valueless,  may  bear  a  value  of  exchange  in  transactions 
with  some  other  nation.  The  economist  considers  only  the 
actual  value  of  the  thing  done  or  produced  ;  and  if  he  sees  a 
qumtity  of  labour  spent,  for  instance,  by  the  Swiss,  in  pro- 
ducing woodwork  for  sale  to  the  English,  he  at  once  sets  the 
commercial  impoverishment  of  the  English  purchaser  against 
the  commercial  enrichment  of  the  Swiss  seller  ;  and  con- 
siders the  whole  transaction  productive  only  as  far  as  the 
woodwork  itself  is  a  real  addition  to  the  wealth  of  the  world. 


ADDENDA.  I7I 

ought  to  have,  having  so  many  bad  ones,  and 

that  all  youths  who  had  true  painters'  genius 

forced  their  way  out  of  obscurity. 

For  the  arrangement  of  the  laws  of  a  nation  so  as  to  procure 
the  greatest  advantages  to  itself,  and  leave  the  smallest  advan- 
tages to  other  nations,  is  not  a  part  of  the  science  of  politi- 
cal economy,  but  merely  a  broad  application  of  the  sc.ence 
of  fraud.  Considered  thus  in  the  abstract,  pictures  are  not 
an  addition  to  the  monetary  wealth  of  the  world,  except  in 
the  amount  of  pleasure  or  instruction  to  be  got  out  of  them 
day  by  day  :  but  there  is  a  certain  protective  effect  on  wealth 
exercised  by  works  of  high  art  which  must  always  be  included 
in  the  estimate  of  their  value.  Generally  speaking,  persons 
who  decorate  their  houses  with  pictures  will  not  spend  so 
much  money  in  papers,  carpets,  curtains,  or  other  expensive 
and  peri'hab'e  luxuries  as  they  would  otherwise.  Works  of 
good  art,  like  books,  exercise  a  conservative  effect  on  the 
rooms  they  are  kept  in  ;  and  the  wall  of  the  library  or  picture 
gallery  remains  undisturbed,  when  those  of  other  rooms  are 
repapered  or  re-panelled.  Of  course  this  effect  is  still  more 
definite  when  the  picture  is  on  the  walls  themselves,  either 
on  canvas  stretched  into  fixed  shapes  on  their  panels,  or  in 
fresco  ;  involving.  of  course,  the  preservation  of  the  building 
from  all  unnecessary  and  capricious  alteration.  And,  gener- 
ally speaking,  the  occpation  of  a  large  number  of  hands  in 
painting  or  scu'pture  in  any  nation  may  be  considered  as 
tending  to  check  the  disposition  to  indulge  in  perishable 
luxury.  I  do  not,  however,  in  my  assumption  that  works  of 
art  are  treasures,  take  much  into  consideration  this  colla- 
teral monetary  result.  I  consider  them  treasures,  merely  as 
permanent  means  of  pleasure  and  instruction  ;  and  having 
at  other  times  tried  to  show  the  several  ways  in  which  they 
can  please  and  teach,  assume  here  that  they  are  thus  useful, 
and  that  it  is  desirable  to  make  as  many  painters  as  we  can. 


1/2  "a  joy  for  ever." 

This  is  not  so.  It  is  difficult  to  analyse  the 
characters  of  mind  which  cause  youths  to  mis- 
take their  vocation,  and  to  endeavour  to  become 
artists,  when  they  have  no  true  artist's  gift. 
But  the  fact  is,  that  multitudes  of  young  men 
do  this,  and  that  by  far  the  greater  number 
of  living  artists  are  men  who  have  mistaken 
their  vocation.  The  peculiar  circumstances 
of  modern  life,  which  exhibit  art  in  almost 
every  form  to  the  sight  of  the  youths  in  our 
great  cities,  have  a  natural  tendency  to  fill  their 
imaginations  with  borrowed  ideas,  and  their 
minds  with  imperfect  science ;  the  mere  dis- 
like of  mechanical  employments,  either  felt  to 
be  irksome,  or  believed  to  be  degrading,  urges 
numbers  of  young  men  to  become  painters,  in 
the  same  temper  in  which  they  would  enlist 
or  go  to  sea ;  others,  the  sons  of  engravers 
or  artists,  taught  the  business  of  the  art  by 
their  parents,  and  having  no  gift  for  it  them- 
selves, follow  it  as  the  means  of  livelihood,  in 
an  ignoble  patience ;  or,  if  ambitious,  seek  to 
attract  regard,  or  distance  rivalry,  by  fantastic, 
meretricious,  or  unprecedented  applications  of 
their  mechanical  skill ;  while  finally,  many 
men,  earnest   in   feeling,  and  conscientious  in 


ADDENDA.  173 

principle,  mistake  their  desire  to  be  useful  for 
a  love  of  art,  and  their  quickness  of  emotion 
for  its  capacity,  and  pass  their  lives  in  paint- 
ing moral  and  instructive  pictures,  which 
might  almost  justify  us  in  thinking  nobody 
could  be  a  painter  but  a  rogue.  On  the  other 
hand,  I  believe  that  much  of  the  best  artisti- 
cal  intellect  is  daily  lost  in  other  avocations. 
General!  v,  the  temper  which  would  make  an 
admirable  artist  is  humble  and  observant,  cap- 
able of  taking  much  interest  in  little  things, 
and  of  entertaining  itself  pleasantly  in  the  dull- 
est circumstances.  Suppose,  added  to  these 
characters,  a  steady  conscientiousness  which 
seeks  to  do  its  duty  wherever  it  may  be 
placed,  and  the  power,  denied  to  few  artistical 
minds,  of  ingenious  invention  in  almost  any 
practical  department  of  human  skill,  and  it 
can  hardly  be  doubted  that  the  very  humility 
and  conscientiousness  which  would  have  per- 
fected the  painter,  have  in  many  instances 
prevented  his  becoming  one  ;  and  that  in  the 
quiet  life  of  our  steady  craftsmen — sagacious 
manufacturers,  and  uncomplaining  clerks — 
there  may  frequently  be  concealed  more  genius 
than    ever    is  raised    to    the    direction    of  our 


174  "a  joy  for  ever." 

public  works,  or  to  be  the  mark  of  our  public 
praises. 

133.  It  is  indeed  probable,  that  intense  dis- 
position for  art  will  conquer  the  most  formid- 
able obstacles,  if  the  surrounding  circumstances 
are  such  as  at  all  to  present  the  idea  of  such 
conquest  to  the  mind  ;  but  we  have  no  ground 
for  concluding  that  Giotto  would  ever  have  been 
more  than  a  shepherd,  if  Cimabue  had  not  by 
chance  found  him  drawing ;  or  that  among  the 
shepherds  of  the  Apennines  there  were  no 
other  Giottos,  undiscovered  by  Cimabue.  We 
are  too  much  in  the  habit  of  considering  happy 
accidents  as  what  are  called  'special  Provi- 
dences' ;  and  thinking  that  when  any  great 
work  needs  to  be  done,  the  man  who  is  to  do 
it  will  certainly  be  pointed  out  by  Providence, 
be  he  shepherd  or  seaboy  ;  and  prepared  for 
his  work  by  all  kinds  of  minor  providences, 
in  the  best  possible  way.  Whereas  all  the 
analogies  of  God's  operations  in  other  matters 
prove  the  contrary  of  this ;  we  find  that  "  of 
thousand  seeds,  He  often  brings  but  one  to 
bear,"  often  not  one  ;  and  the  one  seed  which 
He  appoints  to  bear  is  allowed  to  bear  crude 
or  perfect  fruit    according    to  the   dealings   of 


ADDENDA.  175 

the  husbandman  with  it.  And  there  cannot 
be  a  doubt  in  the  mind  of  any  person  accus- 
tomed to  take  broad  and  logical  views  of  the 
world's  history,  that  its  events  are  ruled  by 
Providence  in  precisely  the  same  manner  as  its 
harvests  ;  that  the  seeds  of  good  and  evil  are 
broadcast  among  men,  just  as  the  seeds  of 
thistles  and  fruits  are  ;  and  that  according  to 
the  force  of  our  industry,  and  wisdom  of  our 
husbandry,  the  ground  will  bring  forth  to  us 
figs  or  thistles.  So  that  when  it  seems  needed 
that  a  certain  work  should  be  dene  for  the 
world,  and  no  man  is  there  to  do  it,  we  have 
no  right  to  say  that  God  did  not  wish  it  to  be 
done ;  and  therefore  sent  no  m  n  able  to  do  it. 
The  probability  (if  I  wrote  my  own  convic- 
tions, I  should  say  certainty)  is,  that  He  sent 
many  men,  hundreds  of  men,  able  to  do  it  ;  and 
that  we  have  rejected  them,  or  crur'ed  them; 
by  our  previous  folly  of  conduct  or  of  institu- 
tion, we  have  rendered  it  impossible  to  dis- 
tinguish, or  impossible  to  reach  them ;  and 
when  the  need  for  them  comes,  and  we  suffer 
for  the  want  of  them,  it  is  not  that  God  refuses 
to  send  us  deliverers,  and  specially  appoints  all 
our  consequent  sufferings  ;  but  that  He  has  sent, 


176  "a  joy  for  ever." 

and  we  have  refused,  the  deliverers  ;  and  the 
pain  is  then  wrought  out  by  His  eternal  law, 
as  surely  as  famine  is  wrought  out  by  eternal 
law  for  a  nation  which  will  neither  plough  nor 
sow.  No  less  are  we  in  error  in  supposing, 
as  we  so  frequently  do,  that  if  a  man  be  found, 
he  is  sure  to  be  in  all  respects  fitted  for  the 
work  to  be  done,  as  the  key  is  to  the  lock  :  and 
that  every  accident  which  happened  in  the 
forging  him,  only  adapted  him  more  truly  to 
the  wards.  It  is  pitiful  to  hear  historians  be- 
guiling themselves  and  their  readers,  by  trac- 
ing in  the  early  history  of  great  men  the  minor 
circumstances  which  fitted  them  for  the  wyork 
they  did,  without  ever  taking  notice  of  the 
other  circumstances  which  as  assuredly  un- 
fitted them  for  it ;  so  concluding  that  miracu- 
lous interposition  prepared  them  in  all  points 
for  everything,  and  that  they  did  all  that  could 
have  been  desired  or  hoped  for  from  them ; 
whereas  the  certainty  of  the  matter  is  that, 
throughout  their  lives,  they  were  thwarted  and 
corrupted  by  some  things  as  certainly  as  they 
were  helped  and  disciplined  by  others;  and 
that,  in  the  kindliest  and  most  reverent  view 
which  can  justly  be  taken  of  them,  they  were 


ADDENDA.  1 77 

but  poor  mistaken  creatures,  struggling  with 
a  world  more  profoundly  mistaken  than  they  ; 
— assuredly  sinned  against  or  sinning  in  thou- 
sands of  ways,  and  bringing  out  at  last  a 
maimed  result — not  what  they  might  or  ought 
to  have  done,  but  all  that  could  be  done  against 
the  world's  resistance,  and  in  spite  of  their  own 
sorrowful  falsehood  to  themselves. 

134.  And  this  being  so,  it  is  the  practical 
duty  of  a  wise  nation,  first  to  withdraw,  as  far 
as  may  be,  its  youth  from  destructive  influ- 
ences ; — then  to  try  its  material  as  far  as 
possible,  and  to  lose  the  use  of  none  that  is 
good.  I  do  not  mean  by  "  withdrawing  from 
destructive  influences "  the  keeping  of  youths 
out  of  trials  ;  but  the  keeping  them  out  of 
the  way  of  things  purely  and  absolutely  mis- 
chievous. I  do  not  mean  that  we  should 
shade  our  green  corn  in  all  heat,  and  shel- 
ter it  in  all  frost,  but  only  that  we  should 
dyke  out  the  inundation  from  it,  and  drive  the 
fowls  away  from  it.  Let  your  youth  labour 
and  suffer  ;  but  do  not  let  it  starve,  nor  steal, 
nor  blaspheme. 

135.  It  is  not,  of  course,  in  my  power  here 
to  enter  into  details  of  schemes  of  education  ; 

12 


178  "a  joy  for  ever." 

and  it  will  be  long  before  the  results  of  ex- 
periments now  in  progress  will  give  data  for 
the  solution  of  the  most  difficult  questions  con- 
nected with  the  subject,  of  which  the  principal 
one  is  the  mode  in  which  the  chance  of  ad- 
vancement in  life  is  to  be  extended  to  all,  and 
yet  made  compatible  with  contentment  in  the 
pursuit  of  lower  avocations  by  those  whose 
abilities  do  not  qualify  them  for  the  higher. 
But  the  general  principle  of  trial  schools  lies 
at  the  root  of  the  matter — of  schools,  that  is 
to  say,  in  which  the  knowledge  offered  and 
discipline  enforced  shall  be  all  a  part  of  a  great 
assay  of  the  human  soul,  and  in  which  the  one 
shall  be  increased,  the  other  directed,  as  the 
tried  heart  and  brain  will  best  bear,  and  no 
otherwise.  One  thing,  however,  I  must  say, 
that  in  this  trial  I  believe  all  emulation  to 
be  a  false  motive,  and  all  giving  of  prizes  a 
false  means.  All  that  you  can  depend  upon 
in  a  boy,  as  significative  of  true  power,  likely 
to  issue  in  good  fruit,  is  his  will  to  work  for 
the  work's  sake,  not  his  desire  to  surpass  his 
school-fellows  ;  and  the  aim  of  the  teaching  you 
give  him  ought  to  be,  to  prove  to  him  and 
strengthen   in   him   his  own  separate  gift,  not 


ADDENDA.  I/O, 

to  puff  him  into  swollen  rivalry  with  those  who 
are  everlastingly  greater  than  he  :  still  less 
ought  you  to  hang  favours  and  ribands  about 
the  neck  of  the  creature  who  is  the  greatest, 
to  make  the  rest  envy  him.  Try  to  make  them 
love  him  and  follow  him,  not  struggle  with 
him. 

136.  There  must,  of  course,  be  examination 
to  ascertain  and  attest  both  progress  and  rela- 
tive capacity  ;  but  our  aim  should  be  to  make 
the  students  rather  look  upon  it  as  a  means 
of  ascertaining  their  own  true  positions  and 
powers  in  the  world,  than  as  an  arena  in  which 
to  carry  away  a  present  victory.  I  have  not, 
perhaps,  in  the  course  of  the  lecture,  insisted 
enough  on  the  nature  of  relative  capacity  and 
individual  character,  as  the  roots  of  all  real 
value  in  Art.  We  are  too  much  in  the  habit, 
in  these  days,  of  acting  as  if  Art  worth  a  price 
in  the  market  were  a  commodity  which  people 
could  be  generally  taught  to  produce,  and  as  if 
the  education  of  the  artist,  not  his  capacity,  gave 
the  sterling  value  to  his  work.  No  impression 
can  possibly  be  more  absurd  or  false.  What- 
ever people  can  teach  each  other  to  do,  they 
will  estimate,  and  ought  to  estimate,  only  as 


i So  "a  joy  for  ever." 

common  industry ;  nothing  will  ever  fetch  a 
high  price  but  precisely  that  which  cannot  be 
taught,  and  which  nobody  can  do  but  the  man 
from  whom  it  is  purchased.  No  state  of  society, 
nor  stage  of  knowledge,  ever  does  away  with 
the  natural  pre-eminence  of  one  man  over  an- 
other; and  it  is  that  pre-eminence,  and  that 
only,  which  will  give  work  high  value  in  the 
market,  or  which  ought  to  do  so.  It  is  a  bad 
sign  of  the  judgment,  and  bad  omen  for  the 
progress,  of  a  nation,  if  it  supposes  itself  to 
possess  many  artists  of  equal  merit.  Noble  art 
is  nothing  less  than  the  expression  of  a  great 
soul ;  and  great  souls  are  not  common  things. 
If  ever  we  confound  their  work  with  that  of 
others,  it  is  not  through  liberality,  but  through 
blindness. 


Note  4th,  p.  28.—"  Public  favour? 

137.  There  is  great  difficulty  in  making  any 
short  or  general  statement  of  the  difference 
between  great  and  ignoble  minds  in  their  be- 
haviour to  the  '  public*  It  is  by  no  means  uni- 
versally the  case  that  a  mean  mind,  as  stated 
in  the  text,  will  bend  itself  to  what  }'ou  ask  of 


ADDENDA.  I  8  I 

it :  on  the  contrary,  there  is  one  kind  of  mind, 
the  meanest  of  all,  which  perpetually  complains 
of  the  public,  and  contemplates  and  proclaims 
itself  as  a  '  genius,'  refuses  all  wholesome  dis- 
cipline or  humble  office,  and  ends  in  miserable 
and  revengeful  ruin  ;  also,  the  greatest  minds 
are  marked  by  nothing  more  distinctly  than 
an  inconceivable  humilit}7,  and  acceptance  of 
work  or  instruction  in  any  form,  and  from 
any  quarter.  They  will  learn  from  everybody, 
and  do  anything  that  anybody  asks  of  them, 
so  long  as  it  involves  only  toil,  or  what  other 
men  would  think  degradation.  But  the  point  of 
quarrel,  nevertheless,  assuredly  rises  some  day 
between  the  public  and  them,  respecting  some 
matter,  not  of  humiliation,  but  of  Fact.  Your 
great  man  always  at  last  comes  to  see  some- 
thing the  public  don't  see.  This  something  he 
will  assuredly  persist  in  asserting,  whether  with 
tongue  or  pencil,  to  be  as  he  sees  it,  not  as 
they  see  it ;  and  all  the  world  in  a  heap  on 
the  other  side,  will  not  get  him  to  say  other- 
wise. Then,  if  the  world  objects  to  the  saying, 
he  may  happen  to  get  stoned  or  burnt  for  it, 
but  that  does  not  in  the  least  matter  to  him  ;  if 
the   world   has   no   particular  objection   to   the 


lS2  "A   JOY    FOR    FA'ER." 

saying,  he  may  get  leave  to  mutter  it  to  himself 
till  he  dies,  and  be  merely  taken  for  an  idiot ; 
that  also  does  not  matter  to  him — mutter  it  he 
will,  according  to  what  he  perceives  to  be  fact, 
and  not  at  all  according  to  the  roaring  of  the 
walls  of  Red  Sea  on  the  right  hand  or  left  of 
him.  Hence  the  quarrel,  sure  at  some  time 
or  other  to  be  started  between  the  public  and 
him  ;  while  your  mean  man,  though  he  will 
spit  and  scratch  spiritedly  at  the  public,  while 
it  does  n^t  attend  to  him,  will  bow  to  it  for  its 
clap  in  any  direction,  and  say  anything  when 
he  has  got  its  ear,  which  he  thinks  will  bring 
him  another  clap ;  and  thus,  as  stated  in  the 
text,  he  and  it  go  on  cmoothly  together. 

There  are,  however,  times  when  the  obsti- 
nacy of  the  mean  man  looks  very  like  the  obsti- 
nacy of  the  great  one;  but  if  you  look  closely 
into  the  matter,  you  will  always  see  that  the 
obstinacy  of  the  first  is  in  the  pronunciation 
of  "  I ; "  and  of  the  second,  in  the  pronunci- 
ation of  "  It." 


ADDENDA.  1 83 

Note  5th,  p.  56. — "Invention  of  new  wants." 

138.  It  would  have  been  impossible  for  poli- 
tical economists  long  to  have  endured  the 
error  spoken  of  in  the  text,*  had  they  not  been 
confused  by  an  idea,  in  part  well  founded,  that 
the  energies  and  refinements,  as  well  as  the 
riches  of  civilised  life,  arose  from  imaginary 
wants.     It  is  quite  true,  that  the  savage  who 

*  I  have  given  the  political  economist  too  much  credit  in 
saying  this.  Actually,  while  these  sheets  are  passing  through 
the  press,  the  blunt,  broad,  unmitigated  fallacy  is  enunciated, 
formally  and  precisely,  by  the  common  councilmen  of  New 
York,  in  their  report  on  the  present  commercial  crisis. 
Here  is  their  collective  opinion,  published  in  the  Times  of 
November  23rd,  1857: — "Another  erroneous  idea  is  that 
luxurious  living,  extravagant  dressing,  splendid  turn-outs  and 
fine  houses,  are  the  cause  of  distress  to  a  nation.  No  more 
erroneous  impression  could  exist.  Every  extravagance  that 
the  man  of  100,000  or  1,000,000  dollars  indulges  in  adds  to 
the  means,  the  support,  the  wealth  of  ten  or  a  hundred  who 
had  little  or  nothing  else  but  their  labour,  their  intellect, 
or  their  taste.  If  a  man  of  1,000,000  dollars  spends  prin- 
cipal and  interest  in  ten  years,  and  finds  himself  beggared  at 
the  end  of  that  time,  he  has  actually  made  a  hundred  who 
have  catered  to  his  extravagance,  employers  or  employed, 
so  much  richer  by  the  division  of  his  wealth.  He  may  be 
ruined,  but  the  nation  is  better  off  and  richer,  for  one  hun- 
dred minds  and  hands,  with  10,000  dollars  apiece,  are  far 
more  productive  than  one  with  the  whole." 

Yes,  gentlemen  of  the  common  council ;  but  what  has  been 


184  "a  joy  for  ever." 

knows  no  needs  but  those  of  food,  shelter,  and 
sleep,  and  after  he  has  snared  his  venison  and 
patched  the  rents  of  his  hut,  passes  the  rest  of 
his  time  in  animal  repose,  is  in  a  lower  state 
than  the  man  who  labours  incessantly  that  he 
may  procure  for  himself  the  luxuries  of  civili- 
sation ;  and  true  also,  that  the  difference  be- 
tween one  and  another  nation  in  progressive 
power  depends  in  great  part  on  vain  desires  ; 

doing  in  the  time  of  the  transfer  ?  The  spending  of  the 
fortune  has  taken  a  certain  number  of  years  (suppose  ten), 
and  during  that  time  1, 000,000  dollars'  worth  of  work  rus 
been  done  by  the  people,  who  have  been  paid  that  sum 
for  it.  Where  is  the  product  of  that  work?  By  your  own 
statements,  wholly  consumed  ;  for  the  man  for  whom  it  has 
been  done  is  now  a  beggar.  You  have  given  therefore,  as  a 
nation,  1, 000,000  dollars'  worth  of  work,  and  ten  years  of 
time,  and  you  have  produced,  as  ultimate  result,  one  beggar. 
Excellent  economy,  gentlemen  !  and  sure  to  conduce,  in  due 
sequence,  to  the  production  of  more  than  one  beggar.  Per- 
haps the  matter  may  be  made  clearer  to  you,  however,  by 
a  more  familiar  instance.  If  a  schoolboy  goes  out  in  the 
morning  with  five  shillings  in  his  pocket,  and  comes  home 
penniless,  having  spent  his  all  in  tarts,  principal  and  interest 
are  gone,  and  fruiterer  and  baker  are  enriched.  So  far  so 
good.  But  suppose  the  schojlboy,  instead,  has  bought  a 
book  and  a  knife  ;  principal  and  interest  are  gone,  and  book- 
seller and  cutler  are  enriched.  But  the  schoolboy  is  enriched 
also,  and  may  help  his  schoolfellows  next  day  with  knife 
and  book,  instead  of  lying  in  bed  and  incurring  a  debt  to  the 
doctor. 


ADDENDA.  1 85 

but  these  idle  motives  are  merely  to  be  con- 
sidered as  giving  exercise  to  the  national  body 
and  mind  ;  they  are  not  sources  of  wealth,  ex- 
cept so  far  as  they  give  the  habits  of  industry 
and  acquisitiveness.  If  a  boy  is  clumsy  and 
lazy,  we  shall  do  good  if  we  can  persuade  him 
to  carve  cherry-stones  and  fly  kites  ;  and  this 
use  of  his  fingers  and  limbs  may  eventually 
be  the  cause  of  his  becoming  a  wealthy  and 
happy  man  ;  but  we  must  not  therefore  argue 
that  cherry-stones  are  valuable  property,  or 
that  kite-flying  is  a  profitable  mode  of  passing 
time.  In  like  manner,  a  nation  always  wastes 
its  time  and  labour  directly,  when  it  invents  a 
new  want  of  a  frivolous  kind,  and  yet  the  in- 
vention of  such  a  want  may  be  the  sign  of  a 
healthy  activity,  and  the  labour  undergone  to 
satisfy  the  new  want  may  lead,  indirectly,  to 
useful  discoveries  or  to  noble  arts  ;  so  that  a 
nation  is  not  to  be  discouraged  in  its  fancies 
when  it  is  either  too  weak  or  foolish  to  be 
moved  to  exertion  by  anything  but  fancies,  or 
has  attended  to  its  serious  business  first.  If 
a  nation  will  not  forge  iron,  but  likes  distil- 
ling lavender,  by  all  means  give  it  lavender  to 
distil ;   only  do  not  let  its  economists  suppose 


1 86  "a  joy  for  ever." 

that  lavender  is  as  profitable  to  it  as  oats,  or 
that  it  helps  poor  people  to  live,  any  more  than 
the  schoolboy's  kite  provides  him  his  dinner. 
Luxuries,  whether  national  or  personal,  must 
be  paid  for  by  labour  withdrawn  from  useful 
things;  and  no  nation  has  a  right  to  indulge  in 
them  until  all  its  poor  are  comfortably  housed 
and  fed. 

139.  The  enervating  influence  of  luxury, 
and  its  tendencies  to  increase  vice,  are  points 
which  I  keep  entirely  out  of  consideration  in 
the  present  essay ;  but,  so  far  as  they  bear 
on  any  question  discussed,  they  merely  furnish 
additional  evidence  on  the  side  which  I  have 
taken.  Thus,  in  the  present  case,  I  assume 
that  the  luxuries  of  civilized  life  are  in  posses- 
sion harmless,  and  in  acquirement  serviceable 
as  a  motive  for  exertion  ;  and  even  on  those 
favourable  terms,  we  arrive  at  the  conclusion 
that  the  nation  ought  not  to  indulge  in  them 
except  under  severe  limitations.  Much  less 
ought  it  to  indulge  in  them  if  the  temptation 
consequent  on  their  possession,  or  fatality  inci- 
dent to  their  manufacture,  more  than  counter- 
balances the  good  done  by  the  effort  to  obtain 
them. 


ADDENDA.  1 87 

Note  6th,  p.  74. — "  Economy  of  literature." 

140.  I  have  been  much  impressed  lately  by 
one  of  the  results  of  the  quantity  of  our  books  ; 
namely,  the  stern  impossibility  of  getting 
anything  understood,  that  required  patience 
to  understand.  I  observe  always,  in  the  case 
of  my  own  writings,  that  if  ever  I  state  any- 
thing which  has  cost  me  any  trouble  to  as- 
certain, and  which,  therefore,  will  probably 
require  a  minute  or  two  of  reflection  from 
the  reader  before  it  can  be  accepted, — that 
statement  will  not  only  be  misunderstood,  but 
in  all  probability  taken  to  mean  something 
very  nearly  the  reverse  of  what  it  does  mean. 
Now,  whatever  faults  there  may  be  in  my 
modes  of  expression,  I  know  that  the  words 
I  use  will  always  be  found,  by  Johnson's  dic- 
tionary, to  bear,  first  of  all,  the  sense  I  use 
them  in ;  and  that  the  sentences,  whether 
awkwardly  turned  or  not,  will,  by  the  ordinary 
rules  of  grammar,  bear  no  other  interpretation 
than  that  I  mean  them  to  bear  ;  so  that  the 
misunderstanding  of  them  must  result,  ulti- 
mate^, from  the  mere  fact  that  their  matter 
sometimes    requires    a  little  patience.     And    I 


155  "A   JOY    FOR    EVER. 

see  the  same  kind  of  misinterpretation  put  on 
the  words  of  other  writers,  whenever  they  re- 
quire the  same  kind  of  thought. 

141.  I  was  at  first  a  little  despondent  about 
this  ;  but,  on  the  whole,  I  believe  it  will  have  a 
good  effect  upon  our  literature  for  some  time 
to  come ;  and  then,  perhaps,  the  public  may 
recover  its  patience  again.  For  certainly  it  is 
excellent  discipline  for  an  author  to  feel  that 
he  must  say  all  he  has  to  say  in  the  fewest 
possible  words,  or  his  reader  is  sure  to  skip 
them ;  and  in  the  plainest  possible  words,  or 
his  reader  will  certainly  misunderstand  them. 
Generally,  also,  a  downright  fact  may  be 
told  in  a  plain  way ;  and  we  want  downright 
facts  at  present  more  than  anything  else.  And 
though  I  often  hear  moral  people  complaining 
of  the  bad  effects  of  want  of  thought,  for  my 
part,  it  seems  to  me  that  one  of  the  worst 
diseases  to  which  the  human  creature  is  liable 
is  its  disease  of  thinking.  If  it  would  only 
just  look  *  at  a  thing  instead  of  thinking  what 

*  There  can  be  no  question,  however,  of  the  mischievous 
tendency  of  the  hurry  of  the  present  day,  in  the  way  people 
undertake  this  very  looking.  I  gave  three  years'  close  and 
incessant  labour  to  the  examination  of  the  chronology  of  the 
architecture  of  Venice  ;  two  long  winters  being  wholly  spent  in 


ADDENDA.  1 89 

it  must  be  like,  or  do  a  thing  instead  of  think- 
ing it  cannot  be  done,  we  should  all  get  on  far 
better. 


Note  7  th,  p.  147. — ''Pilots  of  the  State." 

142.  While,  however,  undoubtedly,  these  re- 
sponsibilities attach  to  every  person  possessed 
of  wealth,  it  is  necessary  both  to  avoid  any 
stringency  of  statement  respecting  the  bene- 
volent modes  of  spending  money,  and  to  admit 
and  approve  so  much  liberty  of  spending  it  for 
selfish  pleasures  as  may  distinctly  make  wealth 
a  personal  reward  for  toil,  and  secure  in  the 
minds  of  all  men  the  right  of  property.     For 

the  drawing  of  details  on  the  spot  ;  and  yet  I  see  constantly 
that  architects  who  pass  three  or  four  days  in  a  gondola 
going  up  and  down  the  Grand  Canal,  think  that  their  first  im- 
pressions are  just  as  likely  to  be  true  as  my  patiently  wrought 
conclusions.  Mr.  Street,  for  instance,  glances  hastily  at  the 
facade  of  the  Ducal  Palace — so  hastily  that  he  does  not  even 
see  what  its  pattern  is,  and  misses  the  alternation  of  red  and 
black  in  the  centres  of  its  squares— and  yet  he  instantly  ven- 
tures on  an  opinion  on  the  chronology  of  its  capitals,  which 
is  one  of  the  most  complicated  and  difficult  subjects  in  the 
whole  range  of  Gothic  archaeology.  It  may.,  nevertheles  i 
ascertained  with  very  fair  probability  of  correctne;s  by  any 
person  who  will  give  a  month's  hard  work  to  it.  but  it  can 
be  ascertained  no  otherwise. 


190  "a  joy  for  ever. 

although,  without  doubt,  the  purest  pleasures 
it  can  procure  are  not  selfish,  it  is  only  as  a 
means  of  personal  gratification  that  it  will  be 
desired  by  a  large  majority  of  workers  ;  and  it 
would  be  no  less  false  ethics  than  false  policy 
to  check  their  energy  by  any  forms  of  public 
opinion  which  bore  hardly  against  the  wanton 
expenditure  of  honestly  got  wealth.  It  would 
be  hard  if  a  man  who  has  passed  the  greater 
part  of  his  life  at  the  desk  or  counter  could  not 
at  last  innocently  gratify  a  caprice ;  and  all  the 
best  and  most  sacred  ends  of  almsgiving  would 
be  at  once  disappointed,  if  the  idea  of  a  moral 
claim  took  the  place  of  affectionate  gratitude  in 
the  mind  of  the  receiver. 

143.  Some  distinction  is  made  by  us  natu- 
rally in  this  respect  between  earned  and 
inherited  wealth;  that  which  is  inherited 
appearing  to  involve  the  most  definite  re- 
sponsibilities, especially  when  consisting  in 
revenues  derived  from  the  soil.  The  form  of 
taxation  which  constitutes  rental  of  lands  places 
annually  a  certain  portion  of  the  national 
wealth  in  the  hands  of  the  nobles,  or  other 
proprietors  of  the  soil,  under  conditions  pecu- 
liarly calculated   to  induce  them  to  give  their 


ADDENDA.  Ipl 

best  care  to  its  efficient  administration.  The 
want  of  instruction  in  even  the  simplest  prin- 
ciples of  commerce  and  economy,  which  hither- 
to has  disgraced  our  schools  and  universities, 
has  indeed  been  the  cause  of  ruin  or  total  inu- 
tility of  life  to  multitudes  of  our  men  of  estate  ; 
but  this  deficiency  in  our  public  education 
cannot  exist  much  longer,  and  it  appears 
to  be  highly  advantageous  for  the  State  that 
a  certain  number  of  persons  distinguished 
by  race  should  be  permitted  to  set  examples 
of  wise  expenditure,  whether  in  the  advance- 
ment of  science,  or  in  patronage  of  art  and 
literature ;  only  they  must  see  to  it  that  they 
take  their  right  standing  more  firmly  than 
they  have  done  hitherto,  for  the  positicn  of  a 
rich  man  in  relation  to  those  around  him  is, 
in  our  present  real  life,  and  is  also  contem- 
plated generally  by  political  economists  as  be- 
ing, precisely  the  reverse  of  what  it  ought 
to  be.  A  rich  man  ought  to  be  continually 
examining  how  he  may  spend  his  money  for 
the  advantage  of  others  :  at  present,  others  are 
continually  plotting  how  they  may  beguile  him 
into  spending  it  apparently  for  his  own.  The 
aspect  which  he    presents   to  the  eyes  of   the 


19-  "a  joy  for  ever. 

world  is  generally  that  of  a  person  holding  a 
bag  of  money  with  a  staunch  grasp,  and  re- 
solved to  part  with  none  of  it  unless  he  is 
forced,  and  all  the  people  about  him  are  plot- 
ting how  they  may  force  him  :  that  is  to  say, 
how  they  may  persuade  him  that  he  wants 
this  thing  or  that ;  or  how  they  may  pro- 
duce things  that  he  will  covet  and  buy.  One 
man  tries  to  persuade  him  that  he  wants  per- 
fumes ;  another  that  he  wants  jewellery  ;  an- 
other that  he  wants  sugarplums  ;  another  that 
he  wants  roses  at  Christmas.  Anybody  who 
can  invent  a  new  want  for  him  is  supposed 
to  be  a  benefactor  to  society  :  and  thus  the 
energies  of  the  poorer  people  about  him  are 
continuary  directed  to  the  production  of  covet- 
able,  instead  of  serviceable,  things ;  and  the 
rich  man  has  the  general  aspect  of  a  fool, 
plotted  against  by  the  wrorld.  Whereas  the 
real  aspect  which  he  ought  to  have  is  that  of 
a  person  wiser  than  others,  entrusted  with  the 
management  of  a  larger  quantity  of  capital, 
which  he  administers  for  the  profit  of  all,  di- 
recting each  man  to  the  labour  which  is  most 
healthy  for  him,  and  most  serviceable  for  the 
community. 


ADDENDA.  I 93 

Note  8th,  p.  148. — "  Silk  and  purple." 

144.  In  various  places  throughout  these 
lectures  I  have  had  to  allude  to  the  distinction 
between  productive  and  unproductive  labour, 
and  between  true  and  false  wealth.  I  shall 
here  endeavour,  as  clearly  as  I  can,  to  explain 
the  distinction  I  mean. 

Property  may  be  divided  generally  into  two 
kinds  ;  that  which  produces  life,  and  that  which 
produces  the  objects  of  life.  That  which  pro- 
duces or  maintains  life  consists  of  food,  in 
so  far  as  it  is  nourishing ;  of  furniture  and 
clothing,  in  so  far  as  they  are  protective  or 
cherishing ;  of  fuel ;  and  of  all  land,  instru- 
ments, or  materials  necessary  to  produce  food, 
houses,  clothes,  and  fuel.  It  is  specially  and 
rightly  called  useful  property. 

The  property  which  produces  the  objects  of 
life  consists  of  all  that  gives  pleasure  or  sug- 
gests and  preserves  thought :  of  food,  furniture, 
and  land,  in  so  far  as  they  are  pleasing  to  the 
appetite  or  the  eye  ;  of  luxurious  dress,  and 
all  other  kinds  of  luxuries ;  of  books,  pictures, 
and  architecture.  But  the  modes  of  connec- 
tion of  certain  minor  forms  of  property  with 

13 


194  "A    JOY    FOR    EVER. 

human  labour  render  it  desirable  to  ?rrange 
them  under  more  than  these  two  heads.  Pro- 
perty may  therefore  be  conveniently  consid- 
ered as  of  five  kinds. 

145.  (1)  Property  necessary  to  life,  but  not 
producible  by  labour,  and  therefore  belonging  of 
right,  in  a  due  measure,  to  every  human  being 
as  soon  as  he  is  born,  and  morally  inalien- 
able. As  for  instance,  his  proper  share  of  the 
atmosphere,  without  which  he  cannot  breathe, 
and  of  water,  which  he  needs  to  quench  his 
thirst.  As  much  land  as  he  needs  to  feed 
from  is  also  inalienable  ;  but  in  well-regulated 
communities  this  quantity  of  land  may  often 
be  represented  by  other  possessions,  or  its 
need  supplied  by  wages  and  privileges. 

(2)  Property  necessary  to  life,  but  only  pro- 
ducible by  labour,  and  of  which  the  possession 
is  morally  connected  with  labour,  so  that  no 
person  capable  of  doing  the  work  necessary 
for  its  production  has  a  right  to  it  until  he 
has  done  that  work  ; — "  he  that  will  not  work, 
neither  should  he  eat."  It  consists  of  simple 
food,  clothing,  and  habitation,  with  their  seeds 
and  materials,  or  instruments  and  machinery, 
and    animals    used    for   necessary   draught    or 


ADDENDA.  195 

locomotion,  etc.  It  is  to  be  observed  of  this 
kind  of  property,  that  its  increase  cannot  usu- 
ally be  carried  beycnd  a  certain  point,  because 
it  depends  not  on  labour  only,  but  en  things  of 
which  the  supply  is  limited  by  nature.  The 
possible  accumulation  of  corn  depends  on  the 
quantity  of  corn-growing  land  possessed  or 
commercially  accessible ;  and  that  of  steel, 
similarly  on  the  accessible  quantity  of  coal  and 
iron-stone.  It  follows  from  this  natural  limita- 
tion of  supply  that  the  accumulation  of  pro- 
perty of  this  kind  in  large  masses  at  one  point, 
or  in  one  person's  hands,  commonly  involves, 
more  or  less,  the  scarcity  of  it  at  another  point 
and  in  other  persons'  hands  ;  so  that  the  acci- 
dents or  energies  which  may  enable  one  man 
to  procure  a  great  deal  of  it,  may,  and  in 
all  likelihood  will,  partially  prevent  other  men 
procuring  a  sufficiency  of  it,  however  willing 
they  may  be  to  work  for  it ;  therefore,  the 
modes  of  its  accumulation  and  distribution 
need  to  be  in  some  degree  regulated  by  law 
and  by  national  treaties,  in  order  to  secure 
justice  to  all  men 

Another    point    requiring   notice   respecting 
this  sort  of  property  is,  that  no  work  can   be 


196  "a  joy  for  ever." 

wasted  in  producing  it,  provided  only  the  kind 
of  it  produced  be  preservable  and  distributable, 
since  for  every  grain  of  such  commodities  we 
produce  we  are  rendering  so  much  more  life 
possible  on  earth.*     But  though  we  are  sure, 

*  This  point  has  sometimes  been  disputed  ;  for  instance, 
opening  Mill's  '  Political  Economy'  the  other  day,  I  chanced 
on  a  passage  in  which  he  says  that  a  man  who  makes  a 
coat,  if  the  person  who  wears  the  coat  does  nothing  useful 
while  he  wears  it,  has  done  no  more  good  to  society  than  the 
man  who  has  only  raised  a  pineapple.  But  this  is  a  fallacy 
induced  by  endeavour  after  too  much  subtlety.  None  of 
us  have  a  right  to  say  that  the  life  of  a  man  is  of  no  use  to 
hurt,  though  it  may  be  of  no  use  to  us ;  and  the  man  who 
made  the  coat,  and  thereby  prolonged  another  man's  life) 
has  done  a  gracious  and  useful  work,  whatever  may  come 
of  the  kfe  so  prolonged.  We  may  say  to  the  wearer  of  the 
coat,  "  You  who  are  wearing  coats,  and  doing  nothing  in 
them,  are  at  present  wasting  your  own  life  and  other 
people's  ;  "  but  we  have  no  right  to  say  that  his  existence, 
however  wasted,  is  wasted  away.  It  may  be  just  dragging 
itself  on,  in  its  thin  golden  line,  with  nothing  dependent 
upon  it,  to  the  point  where  it  is  to  strengthen  into  good 
chain  cable,  and  have  thousands  of  other  lives  dependent  on 
it.  Meantime,  the  simple  fact  respecting  the  coat-maker  is, 
that  he  has  given  so  much  life  to  the  creature,  the  results 
of  which  he  cannot  calculate  ;  they  may  be — in  all  pro- 
bability will  be  — infinite  results  in  some  way.  But  the 
raiser  of  pines,  who  has  only  given  a  pleasant  taste  in  the 
mouth  to  some  one.,  may  see  with  tolerable  clearness  to  the 
end  of  the  taste  in  the  mouth,  and  of  all  conceivable  results 
therefrom. 


ADDENDA.  197 

thus,  that  we  are  employing  people  well,  we 
cannot  be  sure  we  might  not  have  employed 
them  better;  for  it  is  possible  to  direct  labour 
to  the  production  of  life,  until  little  or  none  is 
left  for  that  of  the  objects  of  life,  and  thus  to 
increase  population  at  the  expense  of  civiliza- 
tion, learning,  and  morality :  on  the  other 
hand,  it  is  just  as  possible — and  the  error  is 
one  to  which  the  world  is,  on  the  whole,  more 
liable — to  direct  labour  to  the  objects  of  life 
till  too  little  is  left  for  life,  and  thus  to  increase 
luxury  or  learning  at  the  expense  of  popula- 
tion. Right  political  economy  holds  its  aim 
poised  justly  between  the  two  extremes,  desir- 
ing neither  to  crowd  its  dominions  with  a 
race  of  savages,  nor  to  found  courts  and  col- 
leges in  the  midst  of  a  desert. 

146.  (3)  The  third  kind  of  property  is  that 
which  conduces  to  bodily  pleasures  and  con- 
veniences, without  directly  tending  to  sustain 
life ;  perhaps  sometimes  indirectly  tending  to 
destroy  it.  All  dainty  (as  distinguished  from 
nourishing)  food,  and  means  of  producing  it ; 
all  scents  not  needed  for  health  ;  substances 
valued  only  for  their  appearance  and  rarity  (as 
gold  and  jewels);   flowers  of  diffirult  culture; 


198  "a  joy  for  ever." 

animals  used  for  delight  (as  horses  for  racing), 
and  such  like,  form  property  of  this  class ;  to 
which  the  term  '  luxury,'  or  '  luxuries,'  ought 
exclusively  to  belong. 

Respecting  which  we  have  to  note,  first, 
that  all  such  property  is  of  doubtful  advan- 
tage even  to  its  possessor.  Furniture  tempting 
to  indolence,  sweet  odours,  and  luscious  food, 
are  more  or  less  injurious  to  health  :  while 
jewels,  liveries,  and  other  such  common  be- 
longings of  wealthy  people,  certainly  convey 
no  pleasure  to  their  owners  proportionate  to 
their  cost. 

Farther,  such  property,  for  the  most  part, 
perishes  in  the  using.  Jewels  form  a  great 
exception — but  rich  food,  fine  dresses,  horses 
and  carriages,  are  consumed  by  the  owner's 
use.  It  ought  much  oftener  to  be  brought  to 
the  notice  of  rich  men  what  sums  of  interest 
of  money  they  are  paying  towards  the  close 
of  their  lives,  for  luxuries  consumed  in  the 
middle  of  them.  It  would  be  very  interesting, 
for  instance,  to  know  the  exact  sum  which  the 
money  spent  in  London  for  ices,  at  its  desserts 
and  balls,  during  the  last  twenty  years,  had 
it  been  saved  and  put  out  at  compound  interest, 


ADDENDA.  1 99 

would  at  this  moment  have  furnished  for  useful 
purposes. 

Also,  in  most  cases,  the  enjoyment  of  such 
property  is  wholly  selfish,  and  limited  to  its 
possessor.  Splendid  dress  and  equipage, 
however,  when  so  arranged  as  to  produce  real 
beauty  of  effect,  may  often  be  rather  a  gene- 
rous than  a  selfish  channel  of  expenditure. 
They  will,  however,  necessarily  in  such  cases 
involve  some  of  the  arts  of  design  ;  and  there- 
fore take  their  place  in  a  higher  category  than 
that  of  luxuries  merely. 

147.  (4)  The  fourth  kind  of  property  is  that 
which  bestows  intellectual  or  emotional  plea- 
sure, consisting  of  land  set  apart  for  purposes 
of  delight  more  than  for  agriculture,  of  books, 
works  of  art,  and  objects  of  natural  history. 

It  is,  of  course,  impossible  to  fix  an  accurate 
limit  between  property  of  the  last  class  and 
of  this  class,  since  things  which  are  a  mere 
luxury  to  one  person  are  a  means  of  intel- 
lectual occupation  to  another.  Flowers  in  a 
London  ball-room  are  a  luxury ;  in  a  botanical 
garden,  a  delight  of  the  intellect ;  and  in  their 
native  fields,  both  ;  while  the  most  noble  works 
of  art  are  continually  made  material  of  vulgar 


200  "a  joy  for  ever. 

luxury  or  of  criminal  pride;  but,  when  rightly 
used,  property  of  this  fourth  class  is  the  only 
kind  which  deserves  the  name  of  real  property, 
it  is  the  only  kind  which  a  man  can  truly 
be  said  to  '  possess.'  What  a  man  eats,  or 
drinks,  or  wears,  so  long  as  it  is  only  what 
is  needful  for  life,  can  no  more  be  thought  of 
as  his  ppssession  than  the  air  he  breathes. 
The  air  is  as  needful  to  him  as  the  food ;  but 
we  do  not  talk  of  a  man's  wealth  of  air,  and 
what  food  or  clothing  a  man  possesses  more 
than  he  himself  requires  must  be  for  others  to 
use  (and,  to  him,  therefore,  not  a  real  property 
in  itself,  but  only  a  means  of  obtaining  some 
real  property  in  exchange  for  it).  Whereas 
the  things  that  give  intellectual  or  emotional 
enjoyment  may  be  accumulated,  and  do  not 
perish  in  using;  but  continually  supply  new 
pleasures  and  new  powers  of  giving  pleasures 
to  others.  And  these,  therefore,  are  the  only 
things  which  can  rightly  be  thought  of  as  giv- 
ing '  wealth  '  or  '  well  being.'  Food  conduces 
only  to  '  being,'  but  these  to  '  well  being.' 
And  there  is  not  any  broader  general  dis- 
tinction between  lower  and  higher  orders  of 
men  than  rests  on  their  possession  of  this  rea! 


ADDENDA.  201 

property.  The  human  race  may  be  properly 
divided  by  zoologists  into  "  men  who  have 
gardens,  libraries,  or  works  of  art ;  and  those 
who  have  none  ; "  and  the  former  class  will 
include  all  noble  persons,  except  only  a  few 
who  make  the  world  their  garden  or  museum  ; 
while  the  people  who  have  not,  or,  which  is 
the  same  thing,  do  not  care  for  gardens  or 
libraries,  but  care  for  nothing  but  money  or 
luxuries,  will  include  none  but  ignoble  persons  : 
only  it  is  necessary  to  understand  that  I  mean 
by  the  term  '  garden '  as  much  the  Carthu- 
sian's plot  of  ground  fifteen  feet  square  be- 
tween his  monastery  buttresses,  as  I  do  the 
grounds  of  Chatsworth  or  Kew  ;  and  I  mean 
by  the  term  '  art '  as  much  the  old  sailor's 
print  of  the  Arethusa  bearing  up  to  engage  the 
Belle  Ponle,  as  I  do  Raphael's  "  Disputa,"  and 
even  rather  more  ;  for  when  abundant,  beauti- 
ful possessions  of  this  kind  are  almost  always 
associated  with  vulgar  luxury,  and  become 
then  anything  but  indicative  of  noble  character 
in  their  possessors.  The  ideal  of  human  life 
is  a  union  of  Spartan  simplicity  of  manners 
with  Athenian  sensibility  and  imagination  ; 
but    in    actual     results,     we    are    continually 


202  "A    JOY    FOR    EVER. 

mistaking    ignorance  for  simplicity,    and    sen- 
suality for  refinement. 

148.  (5)  The  fifth  kind  of  property  is  repre- 
sentative property,  consisting  of  documents  or 
money,  or  rather  documents  only — for  money 
itself  is  only  a  transferable  document,  current 
among  societies  of  men,  giving  claim,  at  sight, 
to  some  definite  benefit  or  advantage,  most 
commonly  to  a  certain  share  of  real  property 
existing  in  those  societies.  The  money  is  only 
genuine  when  the  property  it  gives  claim  to  is 
real,  or  the  advantages  it  gives  claim  to  cer- 
tain ;  otherwise,  it  is  false  money,  and  may  be 
considered  as  much  '  forged  '  when  issued  by 
a  government,  or  a  bank,  as  when  by  an  in- 
dividual. Thus,  if  a  dozen  of  men,  cast  ashore 
on  a  desert  island,  pick  up  a  number  of  stones, 
put  a  red  spot  on  each  stone,  and  pass  a  law 
that  every  stone  marked  with  a  red  spot  shall 
give  claim  to  a  peck  of  wheat ; — so  long  as  no 
wheat  exists,  or  can  exist,  on  the  island,  the 
stones  are  not  money.  But  the  moment  as 
much  wheat  exists  as  shall  render  it  possible 
for  the  society  always  to  give  a  peck  for  every 
spotted  stone,  the  spotted  stones  would  be- 
come money,  and  might  be  exchanged  by  their 


ADDENDA.  203 

possessors  for  whatever  other  commodities  they 
chose,  to  the  value  of  the  peck  of  wheat  which 
the  stones  represented.  If  more  stones  were 
issued  than  the  quantity  of  wheat  could  an- 
swer the  demand  of,  the  value  of  the  stone 
coinage  would  be  depreciated,  in  proportion 
to  its  increase  above  the  quantity  needed  to 
answer  it. 

149.  Again,  supposing  a  certain  number  of 
the  men  so  cast  ashore  were  set  aside  by  lot, 
or  any  other  convention,  to  do  the  rougher 
labour  necessary  for  the  whole  society,  they 
themselves  being  maintained  by  the  daily  allot- 
ment of  a  certain  quantity  of  food,  .clothing, 
etc.  Then,  if  it  were  agreed  that  the  stones 
spotted  with  red  should  be  signs  of  a  Govern- 
ment order  for  the  labour  of  these  men ;  and 
that  any  person  presenting  a  spotted  stone  at 
the  office  of  the  labourers,  should  be  entitled 
to  a  man's  work  for  a  week  or  a  day,  the  red 
stones  would  be  money ;  and  might — probably 
would — immediately  pass  current  in  the  island 
for  as  much  food,  or  clothing,  or  iron,  or  any 
other  article,  as  a  man's  work  for  the  period 
secured  by  the  stone  was  worth.  But  if  the 
Government   issued    so    many    spotted    stones 


204  "a  joy  for  ever." 

that  it  was  impossible  for  the  body  of  men 
they  employed  to  comply  with  the  orders, — 
as,  suppose,  if  they  only  employed  twelve  men, 
and  issued  eighteen  spotted  stones  daily,  order- 
ing a  day's  work  each, — then  the  six  extra 
stones  would  be  forged  or  false  money ;  and 
the  effect  of  this  forgery  would  be  the  depre- 
ciation of  the  value  of  the  whole  coinage  by 
one-third,  that  being  the  period  of  shortcom- 
ing which  would,  on  the  average,  necessarily 
ensue  in  the  execution  of  each  order.  Much 
occasional  work  may  be  done  in  a  state  or 
society,  by  help  of  an  issue  of  false  money 
(or  false  promises)  by  way  of  stimulants;  and 
the  fruit  of  this  work,  if  it  comes  into  the 
promiser's  hands,  may  sometimes  enable  the 
false  promises  at  last  to  be  fulfilled :  hence  the 
frequent  issue  of  false  money  by  governments 
and  banks,  and  the  not  unfrequent  escapes 
from  the  natural  and  proper  consequences  of 
such  false  issues,  so  as  to  cause  a  confused 
conception  in  most  people's  minds  of  what 
money  really  is.  I  am  not  sure  whether  some 
quantity  of  such  false  issue  may  not  really  be 
permissible  in  a  nation,  accurately  proportioned 
to  the  minimum  average  produce  of  the  labour 


ADDENDA.  205 

it  excites ;  but  all  such  procedures  are  more 
or  less  unsound  ;  and  the  notion  of  unlimited 
issue  of  currency  is  simply  one  of  the  ab- 
surdest  and  most  monstrous  that  ever  came 
into  disjointed  human  wits. 

1 50.  The  use  of  objects  of  real  or  supposed 
value  for  currency,  as  gold,  jewellery,  etc.,  is 
barbarous  ;  and  it  always  expresses  either  the 
measure  cf  the  distrust  in  the  society  of  its 
own  government,  or  the  proportion  of  distrust- 
ful or  barbarous  nations  with  whom  it  has  to 
deal.  A  metal  not  easily  corroded  or  imitated, 
it  is  a  desirable  medium  of  currency  for  the 
sake  of  cleanliness  and  convenience,  but,  were 
it  possible  to  prevent  forgeiy,  the  more  worth- 
less the  metal  itself,  the  better.  The  use  of 
worthless  media,  unrestrained  by  the  use  of 
valuable  media,  has  always  hitherto  involved, 
and  is  therefore  supposed  to  involve  neces- 
sarily, unlimited,  or  at  least  improperly  ex- 
tended, issue ;  but  we  might  as  well  suppose 
that  a  man  must  necessarily  issue  unlimited 
promises  because  his  words  cost  nothing.  In- 
tercourse with  foreign  nations  must,  indeed, 
for  ages  yet  to  come,  at  the  world's  present 
rate    of  progress,    be  carried    on    by   valuable 


206  UA    JOY    FOR    EVER." 

currencies  ;  but  such  transactions  are  nothing 
more  than  forms  of  barter.  The  gold  used  at 
present  as  a  currency  is  not,  in  point  of  fact, 
currency  at  all,  but  the  real  property  *  which 
the  currency  gives  claim  to,  stamped  to  mea- 
sure its  quantity,  and  mingling  with  the  real 
currency  occasionally  by  barter. 

151.  The  evils  necessarily  resulting  from  the 
use  of  baseless  currencies  have  been  terribly 
illustrated  while  these  sheets  have  been  passing 
through  the  press ;  I  have  not  had  time  to 
examine  the  various  conditions  of  dishonest 
or  absurd  trading  which  have  led  to  the 
late  '  panic '  in  America  and  England ;  this 
only   I  know,   that  no  merchant  deserving  the 

Oevr  rather,  equivalent  to  such  re  il  property,  because 
*  erybody  has  been  accustomed  to  look  upon  it  as  valuable  ; 
and  therefore  everybody  is  willing  to  give  labour  or  goods 
for  it.  But  real  property  does  ultimately  consist  only  in 
things  that  nourish  body  or  mind  ;  gold  would  be  useless  to 
us  if  we  could  not  get  mutton  or  books  for  it.  Ultimately  all 
commercial  mistakes  and  embarrassments  result  from  people 
expecting  to  get  goods  without  working  for  them,  or  waiting 
them  after  they  have  got  ihem.  A  nation  which  labours,  and 
takes  care  of  the  fruits  of  labour,  would  be  rich  and  happy 
though  there  were  no  gold  in  the  universe.  A  nr.tion  which 
is  idle,  and  wastes  the  produce  of  what  work  it  does,  would  be 
poor  and  miserable,  though  all  its  mountains  were  of  gold, 
and  had  glens  filled  with  diamond  instead  of  glacier. 


ADDENDA.  20/ 

name  ought  to  be  more  liable  to  '  panic '  than  a 
soldier  should  ;  for  his  name  should  never  be 
on  more  paper  than  he  can  at  any  instant  meet 
the  call  of,  happen  what  will.  I  do  not  say 
this  without  feeling  at  the  same  time  how 
difficult  it  is  to  mark,  in  existing  commerce, 
the  just  limits  between  the  spirit  of  enterprise 
and  of  speculation.  Something  of  the  same 
temper  which  makes  the  English  soldier  do 
always  all  that  is  possible,  and  attempt  more 
than  is  possible,  joins  its  influence  with  that  of 
mere  avarice  in  tempting  the  English  merchant 
into  risks  which  he  cannot  justify,  and  efforts 
which  he  cannot  sustain  ;  and  the  same  pas- 
sion for  adventure  which  our  travellers  gratify 
every  summer  on  perilous  snow  wreaths,  and 
cloud -encompassed  precipices,  surrounds  with 
a  romantic  fascination  the  glittering  of  a  hollow 
investment,  and  gilds  the  clouds  that  curl 
round  gulfs  of  ruin.  Nay,  a  higher  and  a 
more  serious  feeling  frequently  mirgles  in  the 
motley  temptation  ;  and  men  apply  themselves 
to  the  task  of  growing  rich,  as  to  a  labour 
of  providential  appointment,  from  which  they 
cannot  pause  without  culpability,  nor  retire 
without    dishonour.     Our    large  trading   cities 


208  "  A    JOY    FOR    EVER." 

bear  to  me  very  nearly  the  aspect  of  monastic 
establishments  in  which  the  roar  of  the  mill- 
wheel  and  the  crane  takes  the  place  of  other 
devotional  music  ;  and  in  which  the  worship 
of  Mammon  or  Moloch  is  conducted  with  a  ten- 
der reverence  and  an  exact  propriety  ;  the  mer- 
chant rising  to  his  Mammon  matins  with  the 
self-denial  of  an  anchorite,  and  expiating  the 
frivolities  into  which  he  may  be  beguiled  in 
the  course  of  the  day  by  late  attendance  at 
Mammon  vespers.  But,  with  every  allowance 
that  can  be  made  for  these  conscientious  and 
romantic  persons,  the  fact  remains  the  same, 
that  by  far  the  greater  number  of  the  transac- 
tions which  lead  to  these  times  of  commercial 
embarrassment  may  be  ranged  simply  under 
two  great  heads — gambling  and  stealing ; 
and  both  of  these  in  their  most  culpable 
form,  namely,  gambling  with  money  which 
is  not  ours,  and  stealing  from  those  who  trust 
us.  I  have  sometimes  thought  a  day  might 
come,  when  the  nation  would  perceive  that 
a  well-educated  man  who  steals  a  hundred 
thousand  pounds,  involving  the  entire  means 
of  subsistence  of  a  hundred  families,  deserves, 
on    the  whole,  as  severe  a   punishment  as  an 


ADDENDA.  209 

ill-educated    man   who    steals  a  purse   from   a 
pocket,  or  a  mug  from  a  pantry. 

152.  But  without  hoping  for  this  excess  of 
clear-sightedness,  we  may  at  least  labour  for 
a  system  of  greater  honesty  and  kindness  in 
the  minor  commerce  of  our  daily  life  ;  since  the 
great  dishonesty  of  the  great  buyers  and  sellers 
is  nothing  more  than  the  natural  growth  and 
outcome  from  the  little  dishonesty  of  the  little 
buyers  and  sellers.  Every  person  who  tries 
to  buy  an  article  for  less  than  its  proper 
value,  or  who  tries  to  sell  it  at  more  than  its 
proper  value — every  consumer  who  keeps  a 
tradesman  waiting  for  his  money,  and  every 
tradesman  who  bribes  a  consumer  to  extrava- 
gance by  credit,  is  helping  forward,  according 
to  his  own  measure  of  power,  a  system  of  base- 
less and  dishonourable  commerce,  and  forcing 
his  country  down  into  poverty  and  shame. 
And  people  of  moderate  means  and  average 
powers  of  mind  would  do  far  more  real  good 
by  merely  carrying  out  stern  principles  of 
justice  and  honesty  in  common  matters  of 
trade,  than  by  the  most  ingenious  schemes  of 
extended  philanthropy,  or  vociferous  declara- 
tions of  theological  doctrine.     There  are  three 

14 


2IO  "a  joy  for  ever." 

weighty  matters  of  the  law — justice,  mercy,  and 
truth ;  and  of  these  the  Teacher  puts  truth 
last,  because  that  cannot  be  known  but  by  a 
course  of  acts  of  justice  and  love.  But  men 
put,  in  all  their  efforts,  truth  first,  because 
they  mean  by  it  their  own  opinions ;  and 
thus,  while  the  world  has  many  people  who 
would  suffer  martyrdom  in  the  cause  of  what 
they  call  truth,  it  has  few  who  will  suffer  even 
a  little  inconvenience,  in  that  of  justice  and 
mercy. 


SUPPLEMENTARY    ADDITIONAL 
PAPERS. 


Education  in  Art. 
Art  School  Notes. 
Social  Policy. 


EDUCATION    IN    ART. 

{Read  for  the  author  before  the  National  Association 
for  the  Promotion  of  Social  Science  in  the  autumn 
of  1858/  and  printed  in  the  Transactions  of  the 
Society  for  that  year,  pp.  31 1-16.) 

153.  I  will  not  attempt  in  this  paper  to  enter 
into  any  general  consideration  of  the  possible 
influence  of  art  on  the  masses  of  the  people. 
The  inquiry  is  one  of  great  complexity,  in- 
volved with  that  into  the  uses  and  dangers  of 
luxury  ;  nor  have  we  as  yet  data  enough  to 
justify  us  in  conjecturing  how  far  the  practice 
of  art  may  be  compatible  with  rude  or  me- 
chanical employments.  But  the  question,  how- 
ever difficult,  lies  in  the  same  light  as  that  of 
the  uses  of  reading  or  writing ;  for  drawing,  so 
far  as  it  is  possible  to  the  multitude,  is  mainly 
to  be  considered  as  a  means  of  obtaining  and 
communicating  knowledge.  He  who  can  ac- 
curately represent  the  form  of  an  object,  and 
match  its  colour,  has  unquestionably  a  power 


214  <<A    J°Y    FOR    EVER. 

of  notation  and  description  greater  in  most 
instances  than  that  of  words ;  and  this  science 
of  notation  ought  to  be  simply  regarded  as 
that  which  is  concerned  with  the  record  of 
form,  just  as  arithmetic  is  concerned  with  the 
record  of  number.  Of  course  abuses  and 
dangers  attend  the  acquirement  of  every  power. 
We  have  all  of  us  probably  known  persons 
who,  without  being  able  to  read  or  write, 
discharged  the  important  duties  of  life  wisely 
and  faithfully  ;  as  we  have  also  without  doubt 
known  others  able  to  read  and  write  whose 
reading  did  little  good  to  themselves  and 
whose  writing  little  good  to  any  one  else. 
But  we  do  not  therefore  doubt  the  expediency 
of  acquiring  those  arts,  neither  ought  wre  to 
doubt  the  expediency  of  acquiring  the  art  of 
drawing,  if  we  admit  that  it  may  indeed  be- 
come practically  useful. 

154.  Nor  should  we  long  hesitate  in  admit- 
ting this,  it  we  were  not  in  the  habit  of  consider- 
ing instruction  in  the  arts  chiefly  as  a  means  of 
promoting  what  we  call  "taste  "  or  dilettanteism, 
and  other  habits  of  mind  which  in  their  more 
modern  developments  in  Europe  have  cer- 
tainly  not    been    advantageous    to  nations,   or 


EDUCATION    IN    ART.  215 

indicative  of  worthiness  in  them.  Neverthe- 
less, true  taste,  or  the  instantaneous  preference 
of  the  noble  thing  to  the  ignoble,  is  a  necessary 
accompaniment  of  high  worthiness  in  nations 
or  men  ;  only  it  is  not  to  be  acquired  by  seek- 
ing it  as  our  chief  object,  since  the  first  ques- 
tion, alike  for  man  and  for  multitude,  is  not  at 
all  what  they  are  to  like,  but  what  they  are 
to  do ;  and  fortunately  so,  since  true  .  taste, 
so  far  as  it  depends  on  original  instinct,  is 
not  equally  communicable  to  all  men  ;  and, 
so  far  as  it  depends  on  extended  comparison, 
is  unattainable  by  men  employed  in  narrow 
fields  of  life.  We  shall  not  succeed  in  mak- 
ing a  peasant's  opinion  good  evidence  on  the 
merits  of  the  Elgin  and  Lycian  marbles  ;  nor 
is  it  necessary  to  dictate  to  him  in  his  garden 
the  preference  of  gillyflower  or  of  rose  ;  yet 
I  believe  we  may  make  art  a  means  of  giving 
him  helpful  and  happy  pleasure,  and  of  gaining 
for  him  serviceable  knowledge. 

155.  Thus,  in  our  simplest  codes  of  school 
instruction,  I  hope  some  day  to  see  local 
natural  history  assume  a  principal  place,  so 
that  our  peasant  children  may  be  taught  the 
nature  and  uses  of  the  herbs  that  errow  in  their 


216  "a  joy  for  ever." 

meadows,  and  may  take  interest  in  observing 
and  cherishing,  rather  than  in  hunting  of 
killing,  the  harmless  animals  of  their  country. 
Supposing  it  determined  that  this  local  natural 
history  should  be  taught,  drawing  ought  to  be 
used  to  fix  the  attention,  and  test,  while  it 
aided,  the  memory.  "  Draw  such  and  such  a 
flower  in  outline,  with  its  bell  towards  you. 
Draw  it  with  its  side  towards  you.  Paint  the 
spots  upon  it.  Draw  a  duck's  head — her  foot. 
Now  a  robin's — a  thrush's — now  the  spots 
upon  the  thrush's  breast."  These  are  the 
kinds  of  tasks  which  it  seems  to  me  should  be 
set  to  the  young  peasant  student.  Surely  the 
occupation  would  no  more  be  thought  con- 
temptible which  was  thus  subservient  to  know- 
ledge and  to  compassion ;  and  perhaps  we 
should  find  in  process  of  time  that  the  Italian 
connexion  of  art  with  diletto,  or  delight,  was 
both  consistent  with,  and  even  mainly  conse- 
quent upon,  a  pure  Greek  connexion  of  art 
with  arete,  or  virtue. 

156.  It  may  perhaps  be  thought  that  the 
power  of  representing  in  any  sufficient  manner 
natural  objects  such  as  those  above  instanced 
would  be  of  too  difficult  attainment  to  be  aimed 


EDUCATION    IN    ART.  21/ 

at  in  elementary  instruction.  But  I  have  had 
practical  proof  that  it  is  not  so.  From  work- 
men who  had  little  time  to  spare,  and  that 
only  after  they  were  jaded  by  the  day's  la- 
bour, I  have  obtained,  in  the  course  of  three  or 
four  months  from  their  first  taking  a  pencil  in 
hand,  perfectly  useful,  and  in  many  respects 
admirable,  drawings  of  natural  objects.  It  is, 
however,  necessary,  in  order  to  secure  this 
result,  that  the  student's  aim  should  be  abso- 
lutely restricted  to  the  representation  of  visi- 
ble fact.  All  more  varied  or  elevated  practice 
must  be  deferred  until  the  powers  of  true  sight 
and  just  representation  are.  acquired  in  simpli- 
city ;  nor,  in  the  case  of  children  belonging  to 
the  lower  classes,  does  it  seem  to  me  often 
advisable  to  aim  at  anything  more.  At  all 
events,  their  drawing  lessons  should  be  made 
as  recreative  as  possible.  Undergoing  due 
discipline  of  hard  labour  in  other  directions, 
such  children  should  be  painlessly  initiated  into 
employments  calculated  for  the  relief  of  toil. 
It  is  of  little  consequence  that  they  should 
know  the  principles  of  art,  but  of  much 
that  their  attention  should  be  pleasurably  ex- 
cited.    In  our    higher    public  schools,   on    the 


2  I  8  "a  joy  for  ever." 

contrary,  drawing  should  be  taught  rightly  \ 
that  is  to  say,  with  due  succession  and  security 
of  preliminary  steps,  —  it  being  here  of  little 
consequence  whether  the  student  attains  great 
or  little  skill,  but  of  much  that  he  should 
perceive  distinctly  what  degree  of  skill  he  has 
attained,  reverence  that  which  surpasses  it, 
and  know  the  principles  of  right  in  what  he 
has  been  able  to  accomplish.  It  is  impossible 
to  make  every  boy  an  artist  or  a  connoisseur, 
but  quite  possible  to  make  him  understand  the 
meaning  of  art  in  its  rudiments,  and  to  make 
him  modest  enough  to  forbear  expressing,  in 
after  life,  judgments  which  he  has  not  know- 
ledge enough  to  render  just. 

157.  There  is,  however,  at  present  this  great 
difficulty  in  the  way  of  such  systematic  teach- 
ing— that  the  public  do  not  believe  the  princi- 
ples of  art  are  determinable,  and,  in  no  wise, 
matters  of  opinion.  They  do  not  believe  that 
good  drawing  is  good,  and  bad  drawing  bad, 
whatever  any  number  of  persons  may  think 
or  declare  to  the  contrary — that  there  is  a 
right  or  best  way  of  laying  colours  to  produce 
a  given  effect,  just  as  there  is  a  right  or  best 
way  of  dyeing  cloth  of  a  given  colour,  and  that 


EDUCATION    IN    ART.  2IO, 

Titian  and  Veronese  are  not  merely  accident- 
ally admirable  but  eternally  right. 

158.  The  public,  of  course,  cannot  be  con- 
vinced of  this  unity  and  stability  of  principle 
until  clear  assertion  of  it  is  made  to  them  by 
painters  whom  they  respect ;  and  the  painters 
whom  they  respect  are  generally  too  modest, 
and  sometimes  too  proud,  to  make  it.  I  be- 
lieve the  chief  reason  for  their  not  having 
yet  declared  at  least  the  fundamental  laws  of 
labour  as  connected  with  art-study  is  a  kind 
of  feeling  on  their  part  that  "  ce/a  va  sans 
dire."  Every  great  painter  knows  so  well  the 
necessity  of  hard  and  systematized  work,  in 
order  to  attain  even  the  lower  degrees  of  skill, 
that  he  naturally  supposes  if  people  use  no 
diligence  in  drawing,  they  do  not  care  to  ac- 
quire the  power  of  it,  and  that  the  toil  in- 
volved in  wholesome  study  being  greater  than 
the  mass  of  people  have  ever  given,  is  also 
greater  than  they  would  ever  be  willing  Lo 
give.  Feeling,  also,  as  any  real  painter  feels, 
that  his  own  excellence  is  a  gift,  no  less  than 
the  reward  of  toil,  perhaps  slightly  disliking  to 
confess  the  labour  it  has  cost  him  to  perfect 
it,   and  wholly   despairing   of  doing   any  good 


220  "a  joy  for  ever." 

by  the  confession,   he  contemptuously  leaves 
the  drawing-master  to  do  the   best  he  can  in 
his  twelve  lessons,  and  with  courteous  unkind- 
ness  permits  the  young  women  of  England  to 
remain    under    the    impression    that    they   can 
learn  to  draw  with  less  pains  than   they   can 
learn    to  dance.     I   have    had    practical   expe- 
rience enough,   however,   to  convince   me  that 
this   treatment  of  the  amateur  student   is  un- 
just.    Young    girls    will    work    with    steadiest 
perseverance  when  once  they  understand  the 
need  of  labour,  and  are  convinced  that  draw- 
ing is  a  kind  of  language  which  may  for  ordi- 
nary purposes  be  learned  as  easily  as  French 
or    German  ;    this    language,    also,    having   its 
grammar    and    its    pronunciation,    to    be   con- 
quered or  acquired  only  by  persistence  in  irk- 
some exercise — an   error   in   a  form   being  as 
entirely  and  simply  an  error  as  a  mistake  in  a 
tense,  and  an  ill-drawn  line  as  reprehensible 
as  a  vulgar  accent. 

159.  And  1  attach  great  importance  to  the 
sound  education  of  our  younger  females  in  art, 
thinking  that  in  England  the  nursery  and  the 
drawing-room  are  perhaps  the  most  influential 
of  academies.     We  address  ourselves  in  vain 


EDUCATION    IN    ART.  221 

to  the  education  of  the  artist  while  the  de- 
mand for  his  work  is  uncertain  or  unintelli- 
gent ;  nor  can  art  be  considered  as  having  any 
serious  influence  on  a  nation  while  gilded 
papers  form  the  principal  splendour  of  the  re- 
ception room,  and  ill-wrought  though  ccstly 
trinkets  the  principal  entertainment  of  the 
boudoir. 

It  is  surely,  therefore,  to  be  regretted  that 
the  art-education  of  our  Government  schools 
is  addressed  so  definitely  to  the  guidance  of 
the  artizan,  and  is  therefore  so  little  acknow- 
ledged hitherto  by  the  general  public,  especially 
by  its  upper  classes.  I  have  not  acquaint- 
ance enough  with  the  practical  working  of  that 
system  to  venture  any  expression  of  opinion 
respecting  its  general  expediency ;  but  it  is 
my  conviction  that,  so  far  as  references  are 
involved  in  it  to  the  designing  of  patterns 
capable  of  being  produced  by  machinery,  such 
references  must  materially  diminish  its  utility 
considered  as  a  general  system  of  instruction. 

1 60.  We  are  still,  therefore,  driven  to  the 
same  point, — the  need  of  an  authoritative  re- 
commendation of  some  method  of  study  to 
the  public  ;  a  method  determined  upon  by  the 


222  "A    JOY    FOR    EVER." 

concurrence  of  some  of  our  best  painters,  and 
avowedly  sanctioned  by  them,  so  as  to  leave 
no  room  for  hesitation  in  its  acceptance. 

Nor  need  it  be  thought  that,  because  the 
ultimate  methods  of  work  employed  by  painters 
vary  according  to  the  particular  effects  pro- 
duced by  each,  there  would  be  any  difficulty  in 
obtaining  their  collective  assent  to  a  system  of 
elementary  precept.  The  facts  of  which  it  is 
necessary  that  the  student  should  be  assured 
in  his  early  efforts,  are  so  simple,  so  few,  and 
so  well  known  to  all  able  draughtsmen  that, 
as  I  have  just  said,  it  would  be  rather  doubt 
of  the  need  of  stating  what  seemed  to  them 
self-evident,  than  reluctance  to  speak  autho- 
ritatively on  points  capable  of  dispute,  that 
would  stand  in  the  way  of  their  giving  form  to 
a  code  of  general  instruction.  To  take  merely 
two  instances  :  It  will  perhaps  appear  hardly 
credible  that  among  amateur  students,  how- 
ever far  advanced  in  more  showy  accomplish- 
ments, there  will  not  be  found  one  in  a  hun- 
dred who  can  make  an  accurate  drawing  to 
scale.  It  is  much  if  they  can  copy  anything 
with  approximate  fidelity  of  its  real  size. 
Now,  the  inaccuracy  of  eye  which  prevents  a 


EDUCATION    IN    ART. 


223 


student  from  drawing  to  scale  is  in  fact  no- 
thing else  than  an  entire  want  of  appreciation 
of  proportion,  and  therefore  of  composition. 
He  who  alters  the  relations  of  dimensions  to 
each  other  in  his  copy,  shows  that  he  does  not 
enjoy  those  relations  in  the  original — that  is 
to  say,  that  all  appreciation  of  noble  design 
(which  is  based  on  the  most  exquisite  relations 
of  magnitude)  is  impossible  to  him.  To  give 
him  habits  of  mathematical  accuracy  in  trans- 
ference of  the  outline  of  complex  form,  is 
therefore  among  the  first,  and  even  among  the 
most  important,  means  of  educating  his  taste. 
A  student  who  can  fix  with  precision  the 
cardinal  points  of  a  bird's  wing,  extended  in 
any  fixed  position,  and  can  then  draw  the 
curves  of  its  individual  plumes  without  mea- 
surable error,  has  advanced  further  towards  a 
power  of  understanding  the  design  of  the  great 
masters  than  he  could  by  reading  many 
volumes  of  criticism,  or  passing  many  months 
in  undisciplined  examination  of  works  of  art. 
161.  Again,  it  will  be  found  that  among 
amateur  students  there  is  almost  universal  de- 
ficiency in  the  power  of  expressing  the  round- 
ness of  a  surface.     They  frequently  draw  with 


224  " A   JOY    FOR    EVER. 

considerable  dexterity  and  vigour,  but  never 
attain  the  slightest  sense  of  those  modula- 
tions in  form  which  can  only  be  expressed 
by  gradations  in  shade.  They  leave  sharp 
edges  to  their  blots  of  colour,  sharp  angles 
in  their  contours  of  lines,  and  conceal  from 
themselves  their  incapacity  of  completion  by 
redundance  of  object.  The  assurance  to  such 
persons  that  no  object  could  be  rightly  seen 
or  drawn  until  the  draughtsman  had  acquired 
the  power  of  modulating  surfaces  by  gra- 
dations wrought  with  some  pointed  instru- 
ment (whether  pen,  pencil,  or  chalk),  would  at 
once  prevent  much  vain  labour,  and  put  an 
end  to  many  errors  of  that  worst  kind  which 
not  only  retard  the  student,  but  blind  him ; 
which  prevent  him  from  either  attaining  ex- 
cellence himself,  or  understanding  it  in  others. 
162.  It  would  be  easy,  did  time  admit  it, 
to  give  instances  of  other  principles  which  it 
is  equally  essential  that  the  student  should 
know,  and  certain  that  all  painters  of  eminence 
would  sanction ;  while  even  those  respecting 
which  some  doubt  may  exist  in  their  applica- 
tion to  consummate  practice,  are  yet  perfectly 
determinable,   so    far  as    they   are   needed    to 


EDUCATION    IN    ART.  225 

guide  a  beginner.  It  may,  for  instance,  be  a 
question  how  far  local  colour  should  be  treated 
as  an  element  of  chiaroscuro  in  a  master's 
drawing  of  the  human  form.  But  there  can 
be  ho  question  that  it  must  be  so  treated  in 
a  boy's  study  of  a  tulip  or  a  trout. 

163.  A  still  more  important  point  would  be 
gained  if  authoritative  testimony  of  the  same 
kind  could  be  given  to  the  merit  and  exclu- 
sive sufficienc}^  of  any  series  of  examples  of 
works  of  art,  such  as  could  at  once  be  put 
within  the  reach  of  masters  of  schools.  For 
the  modern  student  labours  under  heavy  dis- 
advantages in  what  at  first  sight  might  appear 
an  assistance  to  him,  namely,  the  number  of 
examples  of  many  different  styles  which  sur- 
round him  in  galleries  or  museums.  His  mind 
is  disturbed  by  the  inconsistencies  of  various 
excellences,  and  by  his  own  predilection  for 
false  beauties  in  second  or  third-rate  works. 
He  is  thus  prevented  from  observing  any  one 
example  long  enough  to  understand  its  merit, 
or  following  any  one  method  long  enough  to 
obtain  facility  in  its  practice.  It  seems,  there- 
fore, very  desirable  that  some  such  standard 
of  art   should   be   fixed  for  all  our   schools, — 

I? 


226  "a  joy  for  ever." 

a  standard  which,  it  must  be  remembered,  need 
not  necessarily  be  the  highest  possible,  pro- 
vided only  it  is  the  rightest  possible.  It  is 
not  to  be  hoped  that  the  student  should  imi- 
tate works  of  the  most  exalted  merit,  but  much 
to  be  desired  that  he  should  be  guided  by  those 
which  have  fewest  faults. 

164.  Perhaps,  therefore,  the  most  service- 
able examples  which  could  be  set  before 
youth  might  be  found  in  the  studies  or  draw- 
ings, rather  than  in  the  pictures,  of  first-rate 
masters ;  and  the  art  of  photography  enables 
us  to  put  renderings  of  such  studies,  which 
for  most  practical  purposes  are  as  good  as  the 
originals,  on  the  walls  of  every  school  in  the 
kingdom.  Supposing  (I  merely  name  these  as' 
examples  of  what  I  mean),  the  standard  of 
manner  in  light-and-shade  drawing  fixed  by 
Leonardo's  study,  No.  19,  in  the  collection  of 
photographs  lately  published  from  drawings 
in  the  Florence  Gallery ;  the  standard  of  pen 
drawing  with  a  wash,  fixed  by  Titian's  sketch, 
No.  30  in  the  same  collection  ;  that  of  etching, 
fixed  by  Rembrandt's  spotted  shell ;  and  that 
of  point  work  with  the  pure  line,  by  Dtirer' 
crest  with  the  cock  ;  every  effort  of  the  pupil, 


EDUCATION    IN    ART.  227 

whatever  the  instrument  in  his  hand,  would 
in  fallibly  tend  in  a  right  direction,  and  the 
perception  of  the  merits  of  these  four  works, 
or  of  any  others  like  them,  once  attained 
thoroughly,  by  efforts,  however  distant  or  de- 
spairing, to  copy  portions  of  them,  would  lead 
securely  in  due  time  to  the  appreciation  of 
other  modes  of  excellence. 

165.  I  cannot,  of  course,  within  the  limits 
of  this  paper,  proceed  to  any  statement  of  the 
present  requirements  of  the  English  operative 
as  regards  art  education.  But  I  do  not  regret 
this,  for  it  seems  to  me  very  desirable  that 
our  attention  should  for  the  present  be  con- 
centrated on  the  more  immediate  object  of 
general  instruction.  Whatever  the  public  de- 
mand the  artist  will  soon  produce ;  and  the 
best  education  which  the  operative  can  receive 
is  the  refusal  of  bad  work  and  the  acknow- 
ledgment of  good.  There  is  no  want  of 
genius  among  us,  still  less  of  industry.  The 
least  that  we  do  is  laborious,  and  the  worst  is 
wonderful.  But  there  is  a  want  among  us, 
deep  and  wide,  of  discretion  in  directing  toil, 
and  of  delight  in  being  led  by  imagination. 
In  past  time,  though  the  masses  of  the  nation 


228  "a  joy  for  ever." 

were  less  informed  than  they  are  now,  they 
were  for  that  very  reason  simpler  judges  and 
happier  gazers  ;  it  must  be  ours  to  substitute 
the  gracious  sympathy  of  the  understanding 
for  the  bright  gratitude  of  innocence.  An 
artist  can  always  paint  well  for  those  who  are 
lightly  pleased  or  wisely  displeased,  but  he 
cannot  paint  for  those  who  are  dull  in  applause 
and  false  in  condemnation. 


REMARKS    ADDRESSED 

TO   THE   MANSFIELD   ART   NIGHT   CLASS 

Oct.  i+t/i,  1873* 

166.  It  is  to  be  remembered  that  the  giving 
of  prizes  can  only  be  justified  on  the  ground 
of  their  being  the  reward  of  superior  diligence 
and  more  obedient  attention  to  the  directions 
of  the  teacher.  They  must  never  be  supposed, 
because  practically  they  never  can  become,  in- 
dications of  superior  genius  ;  unless  in  so  far 
as  genius  is  likely  to  be  diligent  and  obedient, 
beyond  the    trength  and  temper  of  the  dull. 

But  it  so  frequently  happens  that  the 
stimulus  of  vanity,  acting  on  minds  of  in- 
ferior calibre,  produces  for  a  time  an  industry 
surpassing    the    .tranquil    and     self-possessed 

*  This  address  was  written  for  the  Art  Night  Class,  Mans- 
field, but  not  delivered  by  me.  In  my  absence— I  forget 
from  what  cause,  but  inevitable — the  Duke  of  St.  Albans 
honoured  me  by  reading  it  to  the  meeting. 


230  A    JOY    FOR    EVER. 

exertion  of  real  power,  that  it  may  be  ques- 
tioned whether  the  custom  of  bestowing  prizes 
at  all  may  not  ultimately  cease  in  our  higher 
Schools  of  Art,  unless  in  the  form  of  substan- 
tial assistance  given  to  deserving  students 
who  stand  in  need  of  it :  a  kind  of  prize,  the 
claim  to  which,  in  its  nature,  would  depend 
more  on  accidental  circumstances,  and  generally 
good  conduct,  than  on  genius. 

167.  But,  without  any  reference  to  the 
opinion  of  others,  and  without  any  chance  of 
partiality  in  your  own,  there  is  one  test  by 
which  you  can  all  determine  the  rate  of  your 
real  progress. 

Examine,  after  every  period  of  renewed  in- 
dustry, how  far  you  have  enlarged  your  faculty 
of  admiration. 

Consider  how  much  more  you  can  see,  to 
reverence,  in  the  work  of  masters ;  and  how 
much  more  to  love,  in  the  work  of  nature. 

This  is  the  only  constant  and  infallible  test 
of  progress.  That  you  wonder  more  at  the 
work  of  great  men,  and  that  you  care  more 
for  natural  objects. 

You  have  often  been  told  by  your  teachers 
to  expect  this  last  result :  but  I  fear  that  the 


ART    SCHOOL    NOTES.  23 1 

tendency  of  modern  thought  is  to  reject  the 
idea  of  that  essential  difference  in  rank  be- 
tween one  intellect  and  another,  of  which  in- 
creasing reverence  is  the  wise  acknowledgment. 

You  may,  at  least  in  early  years,  test  accu- 
rately your  power  of  doing  anything  in  the 
least  rightly,  by  your  increasing  conviction 
that  you  never  will  be  able  to  do  it  as  well 
as  it  has  been  done  by  others. 

1 68.  That  is  a  lesson,  I  repeat,  which  differs 
much,  I  fear,  from  the  one  you  are  commonly 
taught.  The  vulgar  and  incomparably  false 
saying  of  Macaulay's,  that  the  intellectual 
giants  of  one  age  become  the  intellectual 
pigmies  of  the  next,  has  been  the  text  of  too 
many  sermons  lately  preached  to  you. 

You  think  you  are  going  to  do  better  things 
— each  of  you — than  Titian  and  Phidias — 
write  better  than  Virgil — think  more  wisely 
than  Solomon. 

My  good  young  people,  this  is  the  fool- 
ishest,  quite  pre-eminently — perhaps  almost 
the  harmfullest — notion  that  could  possibly  be 
put  into  your  empty  little  eggshells  of  heads. 
There  is  not  one  in  a  million  of  you  who  can 
ever  be   great    in  any  thing.      To  be   greater 


232  "a  joy  for  ever. 

than  the  greatest  that  have  been,  is  permitted 
perhaps  to  one  man  in  Europe  in  the  course  of 
two  or  three  centuries.  But  because  you  can- 
not be  Handel  and  Mozart — is  it  any  reason 
why  you  should  not  learn  to  sing  "  God  save 
the  Queen  "  properly,  when  you  have  a  mind 
to  ?  Because  a  girl  cannot  be  prima  donna  in 
the  Italian  Opera,  is  it  any  reason  that  she 
should  not  learn  to  play  a  jig  for  her  brothers 
and  sisters  in  good  time,  or  a  soft  little  tune 
for  her  tired  mother,  or  that  she  should  not 
sing  to  please  herself,  among  the  dew,  on  a 
May  morning  ?  Believe  me,  joy,  humility, 
and  usefulness,  always  go  together :  as  inso- 
lence with  misery,  and  these  both  with  de- 
structiveness.  You  may  learn  with  proud 
teachers  how  to  throw  down  the  Vendome 
Column,  and  burn  the  Louvre,  but  never  how 
to  lay  so  much  as  one  touch  of  safe  colour,  or 
one  layer  of  steady  stone  :  and  if  indeed  there 
be  among  you  a  youth  of  true  genius,  be 
assured  that  he  will  distinguish  himself  first, 
not  by  petulance  or  by  disdain,  but  by  dis- 
cerning firmly  what  to  admire,  and  whom  to 
obey. 

169.      It  will,   I  hope,   be  the   result  of  the 


ART    SCHOOL    NOTES.  233 

interest  lately  awakened  in  art  through  our 
provinces,  to  enable  each  town  of  importance 
to  obtain,  in  permanent  possession,  a  few — 
and  it  is  desirable  there  should  be  no  more 
than  a  few — -examples  of  consummate  and 
masterful  art  :  an  engraving  or  two  by  Diirer 
— a  single  portrait  by  Reynolds — a  fifteenth 
century  Florentine  drawing — a  thirteenth 
century  French  piece  of  painted  glass,  and  the 
like  ;  and  that,  in  every  to  -  occupied  in  a 
given  manufacture,  examples  of  unquestionable 
excellence  in  that  manufacture  should  be  made 
easily  accessible  in  its  civic  museum. 

I  must  ask  you,  however,  to  observe  very 
carefully  that  I  use  the  word  manufacture  in 
its  literal  and  proper  sense.  It  means  the 
making  of  things  by  the  hand.  It  does  not 
mean  the  making  them  by  machinery.  And, 
while  I  plead  with  you  for  a  true  humility  in 
rivalship  with  the  works  of  others,  I  plead 
with  you  also  for  a  just  pride  in  what  you 
really  can  honestly  do  yourself. 

You  must  neither  think  your  work  the  best 
ever  done  by  man  : — nor,  on  the  other  hand, 
think  that  the  tongs  and  poker  can  do  better 
— and    that,    although    you    are    wiser    than 


234 


'•  A    JOY    FOR    EVER." 


Solomon,    all    this    wisdom    of  yours    can    be 
outshone  by  a  shovelful  of  coke. 

170.    Let  me  take,   for  instance,  the  manu- 
facture   of    lace,    for    which,    I    believe,    your 
neighbouring     town     of     Nottingham     enjoys 
renown.    There  is  still  some  distinction  between 
machine-made    and    hand-made    lace.      I    will 
suppose  that  distinction  so  far  done  away  with, 
that,  a  pattern  once  invented,  you  can  spin  lace 
as  fast  as  you  now  do  thread.     Everybody  then 
might   wear,    not    only    lace    collars,    but   lace 
gowns.       Do    you   think  they  would  be  more 
comfortable   in    them    than    they    are    now  in 
plain    stuff — or    that,    when    everybody    could 
wear  them,  anybody  would  be  proud  of  wearing 
them  ?     A   spider   may   perhaps   be    rationally 
proud  of  his  own  cobweb,  even  though  all  the 
fields  in  the  morning  are  covered  with  the  like, 
for  he  made  it  himself — but  suppose  a  machine 
spun  it  for  him  ? 

Suppose  all  the  gossamer  were  Nottingham- 
made,  would  a  sensible  spider  be  either 
prouder,   or  happier,   think  you  ? 

A  sensible  spider !  You  cannot  perhaps 
imagine  such  a  creature.  Yet  surely  a  spider 
is  clever  enough  for  his  own  ends? 


ART    SCHOOL    NOTES.  235 

You  think  him  an  insensible  spider,  only 
because  he  cannot  understand  yours — and  is 
apt  to  impede  yours.  Well,  be  assured  of  this, 
sense  in  human  creatures  is  shown  also,  not 
by  cleverness  in  promoting  their  own  ends 
and  interests,  but  by  quickness  in  understand- 
ing other  people's  ends  and  interests,  and  by 
putting  our  own  work  and  keeping  our  own 
wishes  in  harmony  with  theirs. 

171.  But  I  return  to  my  point,  of  cheapness. 
You  don't  think  that  it  would  be  convenient, 
or  even  creditable,  for  women  to  wash  the 
doorsteps  or  dish  the  dinners  in  lace  gowns  ? 
Nay,  even  for  the  most  ladylike  occupations 
— reading,  or  writing,  or  playing  with  her 
children — do  you  think  a  lace  gown,  or  even  a 
lace  collar,  so  great  an  advantage  or  dignity  to 
a  woman  ?  If  you  think  of  it,  you  will  find  the 
whole  value  of  lace,  as  a  possession,  depends 
on  the  fact  of  its  having  a  beauty  which  has 
been  the  reward  of  industry  and  attention. 

That  the  thing  itself  is  a  prize — a  thing 
which  everybody  cannot  have.  That  it  proves, 
by  the  look  of  it,  the  ability  of  its  maker;  that 
it  proves,  by  the  rarity  of  it,  the  dignity  of  its 
wearer — either  that  she  has  been  so  industrious 


236  "a  joy  for  ever." 

as  to  save  money,  which  can  buy,  say,  a  piece 
of  jewellery,  of  gold  tissue,  or  of  fine  lace — or 
else,  that  she  is  a  noble  person,  to  whom  her 
neighbours  concede,  as  an  honour,  the  privilege 
of  wearing  finer  dresses  than  they. 

If  they  all  choose  to  have  lace  too — if  it 
ceases  to  be  a  prize — it  becomes,  does  it  not, 
only  a  cobweb  ? 

The  real  good  of  a  piece  of  lace,  then,  you 
will  find,  is  that  it  should  show,  first,  that  the 
designer  of  it  had  a  pretty  fancy ;  next,  that 
the  maker  of  it  had  fine  fingers;  lastly,  that 
the  wearer  of  it  has  worthiness  or  dignity 
enough  to  obtain  what  is  difficult  to  obtain, 
and  common  sense  enough  not  to  wear  it  on 
all  occasions.  I  limit  myself,  in  what  farther 
I  have  to  say,  to  the  question  of  the  manufacture 
— nay,  of  one  requisite  in  the  manufacture  : 
that  which  I  have  just  called  a  pretty  fancy. 
172.  What  do  you  suppose  I  mean  by  a 
pretty  fancy  ?  Do  you  think  that,  by  learning 
to  draw,  and  looking  at  flowers,  you  will 
ever  get  the  ability  to  design  a  piece  of  lace 
beautifully?  By  no  means.  If  that  were  so, 
everybody  would  soon  learn  to  draw — every- 
body  would    design    lace    prettily — and    then, 


ART    SCHOOL    NOTES.  237 

— nobody  would  be  paid  for  designing  it.  To 
some  extent,  that  will  indeed  be  the  result 
of  modern  endeavour  to  teach  design.  But 
against  all  such  endeavours,  mother-wit,  in  the 
end,  will  hold  her  own. 

But  anybody  who  has  this  mother-wit,  may 
make  the  exercise  of  it  more  pleasant  to  them- 
selves, and  more  useful  to  other  people,  by 
learning  to  draw. 

An  Indian  worker  in  gold,  or  a  Scandinavian 
worker  in  iron,  or  an  old  French  worker  in 
thread,  could  produce  indeed  beautiful  design 
out  of  nothing  but  groups  of  knots  and  spirals  : 
but  you,  when  you  are  rightly  educated,  may 
render  your  knots  and  spirals  infinitely  more 
interesting  by  making  them  suggestive  of  na- 
tural forms,  and  rich  in  elements  of  true  know- 
ledge. 

173.  You  know,  for  instance,  the  pattern 
which  for  centuries  has  been  the  basis  of 
ornament  in  Indian  shawls — the  bulging  leaf 
ending  in  a  spiral.  The  Indian  produces 
beautiful  designs  with  nothing  but  that  spiral. 
You  cannot  better  his  powers  of  design,  but 
you  may  make  them  more  civil  and  useful  by 
adding  knowledge  of  nature  to  invention. 


238  "a  joy  for  ever." 

Suppose  you  learn  to  draw  rightly,  and, 
therefore,  to  know  correctly  the  spirals  of 
springing  ferns — not  that  you  may  give  ugly 
names  to  all  the  species  of  them — but  that  you 
may  understand  the  grace  and  vitality  of  every 
hour  of  their  existence.  Suppose  you  have 
sense  and  cleverness  enough  to  translate  the 
essential  character  of  this  beauty  into  forms 
expressible  by  simple  lines — therefore  expres- 
sible by  thread — you  might  then  have  a  series 
of  fern- patterns  which  would  each  contain 
points  of  distinctive  interest  and  beauty,  and 
of  scientific  truth,  and  yet  be  variable  by  fancy, 
with  quite  as  much  ease  as  the  meaningless 
Indian  one.  Similarly,  there  is  no  form  of  leaf, 
of  flower,  or  of  insect,  which  might  not  become 
suggestive  to  you,  and  expressible  in  terms  of 
manufacture,  so  as  to  be  interesting,  and 
useful  to  others. 

174.  Only  don't  think  that  this  kind  of  study 
will  ever  "  pay  "  in  the  vulgar  sense. 

It  will  make  you  wiser  and  happier.  But 
do  you  suppose  that  it  is  the  law  of  God,  or 
nature,  that  people  shall  be  paid  in  money  for 
becoming  wiser  and  happier  ?  They  are  so, 
by  that  law,  for  honest  work  ;  and  as  all  honest 


ART    SCHOOL    NOTES.  239 

work  makes  people  wiser  and  happier,  they  are 
indeed,  in  some  sort,  paid  in  money  for  be- 
coming wise. 

But  if  you  seek  wisdom  only  that  you  may 
get  money,  believe  me,  you  are  exactly  on  the 
foolishest  of  all  fools'  errands.  "  She  is  more 
precious  than  rubies  " — but  do  you  think  that 
is  only  because  she  will  help  you  to  buy 
rubies  ? 

"  All  the  things  thou  canst  desire  are  not  to 
be  compared  to  her."  Do  you  think  that  is 
only  because  she  will  enable  you  to  get  all 
the  things  you  desire  ?  She  is  offered  to  you 
as  a  blessing  in  herself.  She  is  the  reward  of 
kindness,  of  modesty,  of  industry.  She  is  the 
prize  of  Prizes — and  alike  in  poverty  or  in 
riches — the  strength  of  your  Life  now,  the 
earnest  of  whatever  Life  is  to  come. 


SOCIAL  POLICY 

BASED    ON    NATURAL    SELECTION. 

Paper  read  before  the  Metaphysical  Society, 
May  nth,   1875.* 

175.  It  has  always  seemed  to  me  that  Societies 
like  this  of  ours,  happy  in  including  members 
not  a  little  diverse  in  thought  and  various  in 
knowledge,  might  be  more  useful  to  the  public 
than  perhaps  they  can  fairly  be  said  to  have 
approved  themselves  hitherto,  by  using  their 
variety  of  power  rather  to  support  intellectual 
conclusions  by  concentric  props,  than  to  shake 
them  with  rotatory  storms  of  wit ;  and  mod- 
estly endeavouring  to  initiate  the  building  of 
walls  for  the  Bridal  city  of  Science,  in  which 
no  man  will  care  to  identify  the  particular 
stones  he  lays,  rather  than  complying  farther 

*  I  trust  that  the  Society  will  not  consider  its  privileges 
violated  by  the  publication  of  an  essay,  which,  for  such 
audience,  I  wrote  with  more  than  ordinary  care. 


THE    BASIS    OF    SOCIAL    POLICY.  24 1 

with  the  existing  picturesque,  but  wasteful, 
practice  of  every  knight  to  throw  up  a  feudal 
tower  of  his  own  opinions,  tenable  only  by  the 
most  active  pugnacity,  and  pierced  rather  with 
arrow-slits  from  which  to  annoy  his  neigh- 
bours,  than  windows  to  admit  light  or  air. 

176.  The  paper  read  at  our  last  meeting 
was  unquestionably,  within  the  limits  its  writer 
had  prescribed  to  himself,  so  logically  sound, 
that  (encouraged  also  by  the  suggestion  of 
some  of  our  most  influential  members),  •  I  shall 
endeavour  to  make  the  matter  of  our  to-night's 
debate  consequent  upon  it,  and  suggestive  of 
possibly  further  advantageous  deductions. 

It  will  be  remembered  that,  in  reference  to 
the  statement  in  the  Bishop  of  Peterborough's 
Paper,  of  the  moral  indifference  of  certain 
courses  of  conduct  on  the  postulate  of  the 
existence  only  of  a  Mechanical  base  of  Morals, 
it  was  observed  by  Dr.  Adam  Clarke  that,  even 
on  such  mechanical  basis,  the  word,  "moral" 
might  still  be  applied  specially  to  any  course 
of  action  which  tended  to  the  development  of 
the  human  race.  Whereupon  I  ventured  my- 
self to  inquire,  in  what  direction  such  develop- 
ment was  to  be  understood  as  taking   place  ; 

16 


242  "  A    JOY    FOR    EVER. 

and  the  discussion  of  this  point  being  then 
dropped  for  want  of  time,  I  would  ask  the 
Society's  permission  to  bring  it  again  before 
them  this  evening  in  a  somewhat  more  ex- 
tended form ;  for  in  reality  the  question  re- 
specting the  development  of  men  is  twofold, — 
first,  namely,  in  what  direction  ;  and  secondly, 
in  what  social  relations,  it  is  to  be  sought. 

I  would  therefore  at  present  ask  more  de- 
liberately than  I  could  at  our  last  meeting, — 
first,  in  what  direction  it  is  desirable  that  the 
development  of  humanity  should  take  place  ? 
Should  it,  for  instance,  as  in  Greece,  be  of 
physical  beauty, — emulation,  (Hesiod's  second 
Eris), — pugnacity,  and  patriotism  ?  or,  as  in 
modern  England,  of  physical  ugliness, — envy, 
(Hesiod's  first  Eris),  —cowardice,  and  selfish- 
ness ?  or,  as  by  a  conceivably  humane  but 
hitherto  unexampled  education  might  be  at- 
tempted, of  physical  beauty,  humility,  courage, 
and  affection,  which  should  make  all  the  world 
one  native  land,   and  iraaa  7)7  rd(f>o<;  ? 

177.  I  do  not  doubt  but  that  the  first  au- 
tomatic impulse  of  all  our  automatic  friends 
here  present,  on  hearing  this  sentence,  will 
be    strenuously   to    deny  the    accuracy  of  my 


THE    BASIS    OF    SOCIAL    POLICY.  243 

definition  of  the  aims  of  modern  English  edu- 
cation. Without  attempting  to  defend  it, 
I  would  only  observe  that  this  automatic  de- 
velopment cf  solar  caloric  in  scientific  minds 
must  be  grounded  on  an  automatic  sensation 
of  injustice  done  to  the  members  of  the  School 
Board,  as  well  as  to  many  other  automatically 
well-meaning  and  ingenious  persons  ;  and  that 
this  sense  of  the  injuriousness  and  offensive- 
ness  of  my  definition  cannot  possibly  have  any 
other  basis  (if  I  may  be  permitted  to  continue 
my  professional  similitudes)  than  the  fallen 
remnants  ani  goodly  stones,  not  one  now  left 
on  another,  but  still  forming  an  unremovable 
cumulus  of  ruin,  and  eternal  Birs  Nimroud,  as 
it  were,  on  the  site  of  the  old  belfry  of  Chris- 
tian morality,  whose  top  looked  once  so  like 
touching  Heaven. 

For  no  offence  could  be  taken  at  my  defini- 
tion, unless  traceable  to  adamantine  conviction, 
— that  ugliness,  however  indefinable,  envy, 
however  natural,  and  cowardice,  however  com- 
mercially profitable,  are  nevertheless  eternally 
disgraceful ;  contrary,  that  is  to  say,  to  the 
grace  of  our  Lord  Christ,  if  there  be  among  us 
any  Christ ;  to  the  grace  of  the  King's  Majesty, 


244  A    JOY    FOR    EVER. 

if  there  be  among  us  any  King ;  and  to  the 
grace  even  of  Christless  and  Kingless  Man- 
hood, if  there  be  among  us  any  Manhood. 

To  this  fixed  conception  of  a  difference 
between  Better  and  Worse,  or,  when  carried 
to  the  extreme,  between  good  and  evil  in 
conduct,  we  all,  it  seems  to  me,  instinctively 
and,  therefore,  rightly,  attach  the  term  of 
Moral  sense  ; — the  sense,  for  instance,  that  it 
would  be  better  if  the  members  of  this  Society 
who  are  usually  automatically  absent  were, 
instead,  automatically  present ;  or  better,  that 
this  Paper,  if  (which  is,  perhaps,  too  likely)  it 
be  thought  automatically  impertinent,  had  been 
made  by  the  molecular  action  of  my  cerebral 
particles,  pertinent. 

178.  Trusting,  therefore,  without  more  ado, 
co  the  strength  of  rampart  in  this  Old  Sarum 
of  the  Moral  sense,  however  subdued  into 
vague  banks  under  the  modern  steam-plough, 
I  will  venture  to  suppose  the  first  of  my  two 
questions  to  have  been  answered  by  the  choice 
on  the  part  at  least  of  a  majority  of  our  Coun- 
cil, of  the  third  direction  of  development  above 
specified  as  being  the  properly  called  "moarl  " 
one  ;   and  will  go  on  to  the  second  subject  of 


THE    BASIS    OF    SOCIAL    POLICY.  245 

inquiry,  both  more  difficult  and  of  great  prac- 
tical importance  in  the  political  crisis  through 
which  Europe  is  passing, — namely,  what  rela- 
tions between  men  are  to  be  desired,  or  with 
resignation  allowed,  in  the  course  of  their 
Moral  Development  ? 

Whether,  that  is  to  say,  we  should  try  to 
make  some  men  beautiful  at  the  cost  of  ugli- 
ness in  others,  and  some  men  virtuous  at  the 
cost  of  vice  in  others, — or  rather,  all  men 
beautiful  and  virtuous  in  the  degree  possible 
to  each  under  a  system  of  equitable  educa- 
tion ?  And  evidently  our  first  business  is  to 
consider  in  what  terms  the  choice  is  put  to  us 
by  Nature.  What  can  we  do,  if  we  would  ? 
What  must  we  do,  whether  we  will  or  not  ? 
How  high  can  we  raise  the  level  of  a  diffused 
Learning  and  Morality  ?  and  how  far  shall  we 
be  compelled,  if  we  limit,  to  exaggerate,  the 
advantages  and  injuries  of  our  system  ?  And 
are  we  prepared,  if  the  extremity  be  inevitable, 
to  push  to  their  utmost  the  relations  implied 
when  we  take  off  our  hats  to  each  other,  and 
triple  the  tiara  of  the  Saint  in  Heaven,  while 
we  leave  the  sinner  bareheaded  in  Cocytus  ? 
179.   It  is   well,   perhaps,   that    I    should   at 


246  "  A    JOY    FOR    EVER." 

once  confess  myself  to  hold  the  principle  of 
limitation  in  its  utmost  extent ;  and  to  enter- 
tain no  doubt  of  the  Tightness  of  my  ideal, 
but  only  of  its  feasibility.  I  am  ill  at  ease, 
for  instance,  in  my  uncertainty  whether  our 
greatly  regretted  Chairman  will  ever  be  Pope, 
or  whether  some  people  whom  I  could  men- 
tion, (not,  of  course,  members  of  our  Society,) 
will  ever  be  in  Cocytus. 

But  there  is  no  need,  if  we  would  be  candid, 
to  debate  the  principle  in  these  violences  of 
operation,  any  more  than  the  proper  methods 
of  distributing  food,  on  the  supposition  that 
the  difference  between  a  Paris  dinner  and  a 
platter  of  Scotch  porridge  must  imply  that  one- 
half  of  mankind  are  to  die  of  eating,  and  the 
rest  of  having  nothing  to  eat.  I  will  therefore 
take  for  example  a  case  in  which  the  dis- 
crimination is  less  conclusive. 

180.  When  I  stop  writing  metaphysics  this 
morning  it  will  be  to  arrange  some  drawings 
for  a  young  lady  to  copy.  They  are  leaves  of 
the  best  illuminated  MSS.  I  have,  and  I  am 
going  to  spend  my  whole  afternoon  in  explain- 
ing to  her  what  she  is  to  aim  at  in  copying 
them. 


THE    BASIS    OF    SOCIAL    POLICY.  247 

Now,  I  would  not  lend  these  leaves  to  any 
other  young  lady  that  I  know  of ;  nor  give  up 
my  afternoon  to,  perhaps,  more  than  two  or 
three  other  young  ladies  that  I  know  of.  But 
to  keep  to  the  first-instanced  one,  I  lend  her 
my  books,  and  give  her,  for  what  they  are 
worth,  my  time  and  most  careful  teaching, 
because  she  at  present  paints  butterflies  belter 
than  any  other  girl  I  know,  and  has  a  peculiar 
capacity  for  the  softening  of  plumes  and 
finessing  of  antennae.  Grant  me  to  be  a  good 
teacher,  and  grant  her  disposition  to  be  such 
as  I  suppose,  and  the  result  will  be  what  might 
at  first  appear  an  indefensible  iniquity,  namely, 
that  this  girl,  who  has  already  excellent  gifts, 
having  also  excellent  teaching,  will  become 
perhaps  the  best  butterfly-painter  in  England  ; 
while  myriads  of  other  girls,  having  originally 
inferior  powers,  and  attracting  no  attention 
from  the  Slade  Professor,  will  utterly  lose  their 
at  present  cultivable  faculties  of  entomological 
art,  and  sink  into  the  vulgar  career  of  wives 
and  mothers,  to  which  we  have  Mr.  Mill's 
authority  for  holding  it  a  grievous  injustice 
that  any  girl  should  be  irrevocably  condemned. 
1 8 1.  There    is    no    need    that    I    should   be 


248  "  A    JOY    FOR    EVER." 

careful  in  enumerating  the  various  modes, 
analogous  to  this,  in  which  the  Natural  selec- 
tion of  which  we  have  lately  heard,  perhaps, 
somewhat  more  than  enough,  provokes  and 
approves  the  Professorial  selection  which  I  am 
so  bold  as  to  defend  ;  and  if  the  automatic  in- 
stincts of  equity  in  us,  which  revolt  against  the 
great  ordinance  of  Nature  and  practice  of  Man, 
that  "  to  him  that  hath,  shall  more  be  given," 
are  to  be  listened  to  when  the  possessions  in 
question  are  only  of  wisdom  and  virtue,  let 
them  at  least  prove  their  sincerity  by  correcting, 
first,  the  injustice  which  has  established  itself 
respecting  more  tangible  and  more  esteemed 
property ;  and  terminating  the  singular  ar- 
rangement prevalent  in  commercial  Europe 
that  to  every  man  with  a  hundred  pounds  in 
his  pocket  there  shall  annually  be  given  three, 
to  every  man  with  a  thousand,  thirty,  and  to 
every  man  with  nothing,   none. 

182.  I  am  content  here  to  leave  under  the 
scrutiny  of  the  evening  my  general  statement, 
that  as  human  development,  when  moral,  is 
with  special  effort  in  a  given  direction,  so, 
when  moral,  it  is  with  special  effort  in  favour 
of  a  limited    class ;  but    I  yet    trespass  for  a 


THE    BASIS    OF    SOCIAL    POLICY.  249 

few  moments  on  your  patience  in  order  to  note 
that  the  acceptance  of  this  second  principle 
still  leaves  it  debatable  to  what  point  the  dis- 
favour of  the  reprobate  class,  or  the  privileges 
of  the  elect,  may  advisably  extend.  For  I 
cannot  but  feel  for  my  own  part  as  if  the  daily 
bread  of  moral  instruction  might  at  least  be  so 
widely  broken  among  the  multitude  as  to  pre- 
serve them  from  utter  destitution  and  pau- 
perism in  virtue  ;  and  that  even  the  simplest 
and  lowest  of  the  rabble  should  not  be  so 
absolutely  sons  of  perdition,  but  that  each 
might  say  r  himself, — "For  my  part — no 
offence  to  the  General,  or  any  man  of  quality 
— I  hope  to  be  saved."  Whereas  it  is,  on  the 
contrary,  implied  by  the  habitual  expressions 
of  the  wisest  aristocrats,  that  the  completely 
developed  persons  whose  Justice  and  Fortitude 
— poles  to  the  Cardinal  points  of  virtue — are. 
marked  as  their  sufficient  characteristics  by 
the  great  Roman  moralist  in  his  phrase, 
"  Justus,  et  tenax  propositi,"  will  in  the  course 
of  nature  be  opposed  by  a  civic  ardour,  not 
merely  of  the  innocent  and  ignorant,  but  of 
persons  developed  in  a  contrary  direction  to 
that   which   I   have  ventured  to  call   "  moral," 


250  "a  joy  for  ever." 

and  therefore  not  merely  incapable  of  desiring 
or  applauding  what  is  right,  but  in  an  evil 
harmony,  prava  jubentium,  clamorously  de- 
manding what  is  wrong. 

183.  The  point  to  which  both  Natural  and 
Divine  Selection  would  permit  us  to  advance  in 
severity  towards  this  profane  class,  to  which 
the  enduring  "Ecce  Homo,"  or  manifestation  of 
any  properly  human  sentiment  or  person,  must 
always  be  instinctively  abominable,  seems  to 
be  conclusively  indicated  by  the  order  follow- 
ing on  the  parable  of  the  Talents, — "  Those 
mine  enemies,  bring  hither,  and  slay  them  be- 
fore me."  Nor  does  it  seem  reasonable,  on 
the  other  hand,  to  set  the  limits  of  favouritism 
more  narrowly.  For  even  if,  among  fallible 
mortals,  there  may  frequently  be  ground  for 
the  hesitation  of  just  men  to  award  the  punish- 
ment of  death  to  their  enemies,  the  most  beau- 
tiful story,  to  my  present  knowledge,  of  all 
antiquity,  that  of  Cleobis  and  Bito,  might 
suggest  to  them  the  fitness  on  some  occasions, 
of  distributing  without  any  hesitation  the  re- 
ward of  death  to  their  friends.  For  surely  the 
logical  conclusion  of  the  Bishop  of  Peter- 
borough,  respecting  the  treatment  due  to  old 


THE   BASIS    OF   SOCIAL   POLICY.  2$  I 

women  who  have  nothing  supernatural  about 
them,  holds  with  still  greater  force  when  applied 
to  the  case  of  old  women  who  have  everything 
supernatural  about  them  ;  and  while  it  might 
remain  questionable  to  some  of  us  whether  we 
had  any  right  to  deprive  an  invalid  who  had 
no  soul,  of  what  might  still  remain  to  her  of 
even  painful  earthly  existence  ;  it  would  surely 
on  the  most  religious  grounds  be  both  our 
privilege  and  our  duty  at  once  to  dismiss  any 
troublesome  sufferer  who  had  a  soul,  to  the 
distant  and  inoffensive  felicities  of  heaven. 

184.  But  I  believe  my  hearers  will  approve 
me  in  again  declining  to  disturb  the  serene 
confidence  of  daily  action  by  these  speculations 
in  extreme ;  the  really  useful  conclusion  which, 
it  seems  to  me,  cannot  be  evaded,  is  that, 
without  going  so  far  as  the  exile  of  the  in- 
conveniently wicked,  and  translation  of  the 
inconveniently  sick,  to  their  proper  spiritual 
mansions,  we  should  at  least  be  certain  that 
we  do  not  waste  care  in  protracting  disease 
which  might  have  been  spent  in  preserving 
health  ;  that  we  do  not  appease  in  the  splen- 
dour of  our  turreted  hospitals  the  feelings  of 
compassion  which,  rightly  directed,  might  have 


252  "a  joy  for  ever." 

prevented  the  need  of  them  ;  nor  pride  our- 
selves on  the  peculiar  form  of  Christian  bene- 
volence which  leaves  the  cottage  roofless  to 
model  the  prison,  and  spends  itself  with  zeal- 
ous preference  where,  in  the  keen  words  of 
Carlyle,  if  you  desire  the  material  on  which 
maximum  expenditure  of  means  and  effort  will 
produce  the  minimum  result,  "here  you  accu- 
rately have  it." 

185.  I  cannot  but,  in  conclusion,  most  re- 
spectfully but  most  earnestly,  express  my  hope 
that  measures  may  be  soon  taken  by  the  Lords 
Spiritual  of  England  to  assure  her  doubting 
mind  of  the  real  existence  of  that  supernatural 
revelation  of  the  basis  of  morals  to  which  the 
Bishop  of  Peterborough  referred  in  the  close 
of  his  paper ;  or  at  least  to  explain  to  her  be- 
wildered populace  the  real  meaning  and  force 
of  the  Ten  Commandments,  whether  written 
originally  by  the  finger  of  God  or  Man.  To 
me  personally,  I  own,  as  one  of  that  bewil- 
dered populace,  that  the  essay  by  one  of  our 
most  distinguished  members  on  the  Creed  of 
Christendom  seems  to  stand  in  need  of  explicit 
answer  from  our  Divines  ;  but  if  not,  and  the 
common   application   of  the  terms  "  Word   of 


THE    BASIS    OF    SOCIAL    POLICY.  253 

God  "  to  the  books  of  Scripture  be  against  all 
question  tenable,  it  becomes  yet  more  impera- 
tive on  the  interpreters  of  that  Scripture  to 
see  that  they  are  not  made  void  by  our  tradi- 
tions/ and  that  the  Mortal  sins  of  Covetousness, 
Fraud,  Usury,  and  contention  be  not  the  es- 
sence of  a  National  life  orally  professing  sub- 
mission to  the  laws  of  Christ,  and  satisfaction 
in  His  Love. 

J.  Ruskin. 

1  "Thou  shalt  not  covet ;  but  tradition 
Approves  all  forms  of  Competition." 

Arthur  Clougii. 


I  kS, 


FORNIA  AT 


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